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Today I had a long discussion with a hardware dealer.
One of my costumers is planning to upgrade to Remote Desktop.

The hardware dealer offered a big server where he wants to
install a virtual machine for “our” desktop server.

He told me that virtualisation is the best thing at the moment.

I do not see the advantage of such a system.

Our standard is to deliver WINHOTEL RDP on what we call “SERVER BOOK”
This is a notebook with more RAM and foundation 2008 server installed.
We have group polices ready installed. All is ready for work. You plug it in and start working.
A notebook has the big advantage of UPS build in, less energy consumption,
easy to transport, keyboard and monitor are built in too.

In case of a problem you substitute the notebook. Speed is even better that a virtual machine has.
Price is much lower.
Notebooks have built in very stable components – otherwise producers would be confronted with too much guaranty cases.

Best regards,
Otto

Otto,

I've never thought about this before!!! In fact you are right when you talk about energy consumption, easy to transport, easy to change it when necessary. I just make a question: why don't the enterprises and companies use this kind of solution? It's not a criticism, but a REAL question, because is so obvious that is a good option for small companies. Here in Brasil many companies are investing money with big or huge servers and just use virtualisation when is necessary to create other environment without buy another server.
For me it was a good surprise to see your way and I don't know about the others, but I'm going to think better about this with my clients here.

Otto,
which is the typical installation in a Hotel?
How many clients?
Do you use mstsc to work?
Virtualisation is the future for a lot of problems relating to the world of operating system.
Your solution is good
But a notebook is a notebook a server is a server
Tell me about which os you usually install in these notebooks

bye

A Notebook may get too hot very quickly...

I would suggest a Mac Mini (600 euros) where you can run any Windows natively...

http://www.apple.com/mac-mini/

Otto, is an interesting option, but you have already tested the Azure? You can allocate a machine on the network, choose how many processors, how much memory, what version of server (Windows or Linux), and install their software and use as if it were a server, but in this case you're free of maintenance of both hardware as server software, but need a direct connection to the internet.

your solution seems to be good, but a server can have RAID, Cooling specifies, how do you do this with a notebook? and notebook processors usually are weaker versions of desktop (mobile), due to heating, if you use only for your system should be good, but if you have an Exchange Server, or another along should be slower.

Regards

For small installations this might work ok. For larger systems you might have document imaging, Exchange server, web server, domain controller, etc. That is when you may need more of a virtual server environment where backups, power, and support spans more than a single application/server.

Antonio,

I thought about a Mac Mini for a Windows server. Do you use Boot Camp and just boot it up under windows ? Have you tried Windows 2012 Server on it ?

Otto,

I think you had your answer before you started. You have a solution that you use all the time and it works well for your system. There is probably no need to change unless you are not getting the performance your clients are seeking.

Tim

Otto:

Virtualization is the future. I use to configure like you suggested, a powerful notebook / desktop used as a server. Now all our servers are consolidated in one box. More expensive ? Yes. More fault tolerant. YES, by a huge margin. One of the main reasons, besides costs, is that a notebook or desktop is not redundant, strictly speaking. We deployed a HP Proliant Server. Benefits:
1. Redundant memory - can be exchanged without powering down.
2. Redundant power supply - can be exchanged without powering down.
3. Hot swappable hard drives - can be exchanged without powering down.
It goes down to this: how much money your customer is willing to lose if the notebook goes down ? We virtualized Windows Server 2008 R2 and all user desktops. We are running VMware's ESXi server as the host's OS. All Windows versions, including Server 2008 R2, performs faster than running native. Independent benchmarks confirm that a virtualized Exchange server is more robust and can manage far more mailboxes than a physical one. You can have spare virtual machines in case a user crashes his/her Windows. Deploying from a template, joining the domain & active directory and booting it up for production, as if nothing has happened, takes two minutes. We also deployed a spare server in case there's a major malfunction or if we need to shutdown the main server for maintenance, the spare one takes over. Migrating virtual machines from one server to another takes a couple of minutes. All this without the users noticing the change or having to logoff / shut down their desktops. You can control your servers via an iPad.

Hope this helps you.


Gustavo

Thank you all for your help and answers.
Sure this is not a solution for a big network. Attached I post a typically installation of our software.
Best regards,
Otto

Otto, please , Can you tell me the brand of laptop ?

I think the laptop running 365 days 24hours, the laptop burns!!

Regards

Hello Rafa,
we use HP notebooks.
Please see the following pictures of our demo equipment in our office.
We have this system now more than 6 month.
The server was restarted the last time 8 days ago as we installed some group polices.
The temperature on the hottest part you can touch from outside is 25.
6 active users.

Best regards,
Otto

Rafa,

this notebook should run fine more than 115.ooo hours (13 years).
Best regards,
Otto

To me, security and robustness are the key. I love to use remote servers hosted by specialized companies, auto backup, unlimited hard drive storage size, 24 hours inmediate tech support, inmediate hardware replacements, etc, etc...

These forums are hosted on a remote Linux server, no virtualization required. We had no problems at all for so many years...

I can be anywhere in the world, and everything is perfectly set to keep running automatically, without requiring my attention...

all that for 9 US $ by month...

Tim,

yes, you can simply use bootcamp to use a Windows server on a Mac mini. Windows on Apple computers run simply great

Antonio,
yes you are right.
But my application is a Fivewin application that needs a WINDOWS server. These servers are for in house use.
In our country people like their data on own servers. Maybe old fashioned.
Best regards,
Otto

If that people realize that a fire, a thieft, a single glass of water, etc, etc can vanish their data, then they would realize that it is the time to be more professionals about data security...

Yes, they can have backups, but: do all companies make a daily backup ? Where are those backups stored ? Who does it ? etc etc

Technology is about improving, not about living in the past...