[Samba] Re: Migrate BACK to WINDOWS -> Talk me out of it QUICK

[Chris McKeever]

we have a semi-unique environment (or at least I think we do) - where
out of 150 workstations (spread across 11 branches) - only about 20 of
those are actually ever used by the same person day-to-day.  The rest
are shared workstations.

A coule years back this was a nightmare to manage.   the users are the
most computer literate, and would wrench the machines.  So we rolled
out secured machines using DEEPFREEZE .. That stabilized the
environment quite well.

However, windows 98 can only exist so long (right?) - so management
made a big push to get everything up to XP  .. This turned out to be a
management nightmare becuase of the patches - etc.  -- They dont alos
quite understand that upgrading is a never ending battle - and costly
with the way MS does it ---

Then came along the idea for thin clients -- which is what we are
beta'ing with the local termservs (w2k) right now - using THINSTATION
as the clients.  So far they are working great.

As I said, the next move would be to go central - I feel citrix maybe
a little overkill for us - but the load balance and redundancy is far
superb.  I will just have to see where it goes..who knows in a few
months, we may just be moving back to stand alone workstations because
this solution proved illogical --

thanks for all the input - made some decisions a lot easier!


On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 12:34:02 +0200, rruegner <robert at ruegner.org> wrote:
> Hi,
> citrix is the solution of many professional companies to solve such
> Problems, its expensive but it works nice.
> Regards
> 
> Chris Tepaske schrieb:
> 
> 
> 
> > Sound like you are going for a complete Thin client solution, have you
> > thought about Citrix then, expensive but it will give you some redundancy
> > through server load balancing and also will allow to manage the thin
> > environment better. Bandwidth utilization is much improved with the Citrix
> > ICA protocol typically 22K if sound is enabled compared to 64K for the
> > Microsoft RDP protocol.
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Chris Tepaske
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Chris McKeever [mailto:techjedi at gmail.com]
> > Sent: Saturday, 18 September 2004 3:08 PM
> > To: Chris Tepaske
> > Cc: Dragan Krnic; rruegner; samba at samba.org
> > Subject: Re: [Samba] Re: Migrate BACK to WINDOWS -> Talk me out of it QUICK
> >
> > I did some tests playing with a centralized termserv  and pulling
> > large documents to it, and printing large documents across the WAN ...
> > well, in general if I pulled a 100MB TIF it took about 20 minutes, it
> > then took about 3 minutes to print and spoll (all going back and forth
> > over a congested 1/2 T-1)
> >
> > So - what I think I am going to attempt is to completely revamp my
> > network from the core up -- right now we are running full t-1's point
> > to point (hub and spoke) 1/2 data 1/2 digital voice .. for the time
> > being, I am going to roll some generic W2K servers to a coulpe
> > branches to see if the thin client concept will work...
> >
> > If that pans out (which means ultimately I will reduce workstation
> > maintenance by 10 fold) I will begin to switch each location to a VOIP
> > solution, change to a 3Mbit DSL and VPN everything to the central
> > location - and cut the p2p T1.  At the central location I will roll
> > out a huge central file server as well as a central W2K3 termserv
> >
> > This would reduce network administration drastically.  The one catch I
> > forsee is that some laptop users will want access to their files - I
> > am going to think that the 3Mbit will handle most traffic relatively
> > well
> >
> > Outside of almost every computer relying on the central TERMSERV - I
> > think it is a pretty good solution .. I would most likely keep a
> > single XP workstation at each location to handle scanning and some
> > other small little items
> >
> > Anyone see any major snafu's with this - outside of the large project
> > .. I dont have to roll out TERMSERVs to every location and I get to
> > maintain the samba backend (unfortunately its roll dimishes to print
> > servers)
> >
> >
> > On Thu, 16 Sep 2004 10:34:53 +1000, Chris Tepaske <chris at lincom.net.au>
> > wrote:
> >
> >>So what are you thinking? reinstall your remote servers with MS Terminal
> >>servers instead of Samba I'm assuming that each Samba server is DC and
> >>authenticated users. If this assumption is correct then you would want the
> >>terminal server installed as a DC? right. Well this sort of config is
> >>possible but it is certainly not recommended. You could possible exposing
> >>the SAM or the AD to the use base a major security hole, and depending on
> >>how may users you are authenticating you could be putting major strain on
> >>the server and impacting on performance. In fact you will need to make
> >>policy changes on your terminal servers to allow users to logon look at
> >
> > the
> >
> >>following MS article
> >>(http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;247989) basically
> >>depending on user base at remote sites you would more than likely always
> >>have some sort of DC; Samba or Microsoft plus any application server
> >>required i.e. a  terminal server. Basic network design always says limit
> >>network/authentication traffic over WAN links if you want happy users.
> >>
> >>Cheers
> >>
> >>Chris Tepaske
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>-----Original Message-----
> >>From: Dragan Krnic [mailto:dkrnic at lycos.com]
> >>Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2004 11:03 PM
> >>To: rruegner
> >>Cc: samba at samba.org
> >>Subject: [Samba] Re: Migrate BACK to WINDOWS -> Talk me out of it QUICK
> >>
> >>If you can't be more specific than
> >>
> >>   "Combine whatever is fitting best to your need and the users needs",
> >>
> >>I don't see what your point is.
> >>
> >>
> >>>i see no problem to have
> >>>different kinds of servers in one Network, if it makes sense from the
> >>>desired needs, i have serveral Terminal servers and a samba pdc, in
> >>>different offices and locations.
> >>>I would warn to make a pseudo religios discussion out of that.
> >>>Combine whatever is fitting best to your and the users needs.
> >>>for file services i would preffer samba ever.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>I think I'm clear about what this young Jedi knight is asking. His
> >>>>conundrum is that he'll end up with way too many servers if he
> >>>>implements both a Windows Terminal Server and a Samba file and
> >>>>printer server on separate machines. Centralizing the Terminal Server
> >>>>on a big machine would entail dramatic traffic load on his thin 1/2
> >>>>T-1 wire, even if he leaves one Samba server on each site for files
> >>>>and printing. So basically he asks: Does it not make more sense to
> >>>>just add file and print services to the MS Windows Terminal Servers ?
> >>>>
> >>>>And the answer is: Of course, it doesnt!
> >>>>You don't wanna be on the wrong side of the Force, do you, Chris?
> >>>>
> >>>>The way I see it, Chris should put his w2k3 in a vmware sandbox on
> >>>>his quad opteron samba server, ideally. Then install some NX magic
> >>>>and live happily ever after, with one central Samba server, (+
> >>>>stand-by) subleting a couple of w2k3 avatars under vmware. Or vice
> >>>>versa.
> >>>>
> >>>>Let the Force be with you,
> >>>>Yoda
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>sorry but i am not clear what is your Question?
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>Not thinking about migrating back due to issues, it is more due to
> >>>>>>implementation needs and a little situation I have been wrestling
> >>>>>>with for a bit now, and would love some feedback
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>First a little history:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>We currently have 10 locations connected via a dedicated 1/2 T-1.
> >>>>>>Last year I migrated from a WINNT domain to a Samba/LDAP domain. It
> >>>>>>has been running great. Basically did this for license reasons as
> >>>>>>well as reduced administrative horror.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>NOW:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>We have just started to roll out Thinstation thin-clients  that are
> >>>>>>connecting to Win TSRV servers.
> >>>>>>What is being planned is 1 Terminal Server per location.
> >>>>>>This will significantly reduce the adminstrative nightmare on
> >>>>>>multiple Windows boxes and centralize it.
> >>>>>>However, this is where I start to feel that I am having too many
> >>>>>>servers per location, seeing that the windows server could do what
> >>>>>>the Samba server is doing, I am in debate about moving back to
> >>>>>>windows (I have will need to licenses and boxes there anyhows)
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>One other option is just ot house a ginormous WIN-TSRV at the
> >>>>>>central location. However, I am afraid of issues with printing back
> >>>>>>to the remote locations (pushing large files through the 1/2 T-1 to
> >>>>>>print).
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>A Another option is to remove the samba servers from the remote
> >>>>>>location, and just have a samba PDC with authenticating windows tsrv
> >>>>>>machines. - I dont like this option for some reason
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>I really dont want to move away from the SAMBA backend, but at the
> >>>>>>same time dont want to stay with it just because I 'like it' and I
> >>>>>>'want to'. So I am looking for discussion/arguements as to why I
> >>>>>>should stay with the Samba server and a win-tsrv server, as opposed
> >>>>>>to just moving to a MS backend.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>Please Obi-won Kenobi, you are our only help! thanks
> >>
> >>
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> >
> >
>