Thin Client Solution

At West Hatch we have a number of fairly old computers. They will never run Vista or Windows 7.

We also have a server farm that runs Microsoft Terminal Services. The server farm serves two purposes:

Sun Ray

The Sun Ray system installed by Cutter Project uses Suns proprietary thin clients and Solaris servers to load balance between the TS Servers. Its a nice system and works very well – which coming from me is high praise (I have a historic dislike of thin client systems)

Home Access

We also use our TS farm to give home access to our students and staff. They can use the Terminal Services Web Front End or Remote Desktop Connection to access the farm and login as if they were at School.

Now back on topic –

This year we don’t have any money for new computers because we are spending over £300,000 on recabling the whole site with new Ethernet and fibre optics. We are also investing in all new HP switches and HP managed wireless. So what do we do with the old computers. The answer is AnywhereTS.

AnywhereTS is a small application that you can use to create a bootable CD that you can use to either connect directly to the TS Farm or install the software to the hard drive of the computer.

We chose the later option and installed the software onto the computers in question. A simple install that wipes the HDD and then installs the software. The next time you reboot the computer it logs directly into the TS Farm. Because we have a TS Farm we point the client at the separate software load balancer which then deals with balancing connections between the servers of the TS Farm.

Here are a few screen shots of how to create the bootable CD.

The Main Screen
Click MakeClient
We use the unmanaged option
The pro Client gives you all the USB and install options
Now set the IP settings and domain name
Sound settings
Graphics Settings
The next screen allows you to set the boot logo image. You can use one of your own.
Distribution Options
Now save the iso file

Once that’s all done, all you need to do is write the ISO file to a CD, boot from the CD and install the software to the HDD of the computer.

Once you reboot the computer will then connect to your chosen Terminal Server and the users can logon.