Voip Appliance

voip appliance

Where are the cost effective (cheaper than a PC), graphical, diskless network appliances/X terminals?

As I am looking to build or buy a new home, I started planning a home computing system for the house from scratch. What I have in my head is some beefy server and cheap workstations (graphical diskless thin-clients) throughout the house. I have read some up on the Linux Terminal Server Project and envisioned an amazing system possibly involving intercom (VoIP), home chat, controlled web access (I have kids), Myth TV, word processing, presentation and central fax & print. The software seems to be there for the right price. The hardware is another story. I have not been able to put together this architecture cheaper than just buying and networking full fledged Windows systems for each room. Isn’t there supposed to be a cost savings with this architecture? Am I after a 2001 dream that everyone else knows has already failed? I am tired of spyware and viruses and updating multiple systems with various patches. Is it going to cost more for less?

This is a tough one. I know what you mean about wanting one central point for updates, and your VoIP dream can be realized no matter which platform you pick.

The cost savings for the thin client scenario I think was meant to be realized in ease of deployment, management and service. In your case, it’s neither difficult to deploy, nor manage, nor service your PCs, since you are where the machines are and you don’t have another location to support remotely.

It’s easy to ship another Thin Client overnight to anywhere and have it up and running in no time. Or a spare can simply be kept on site and plugged in when another fails.

I’ve worked where thin clients were deployed, and my opinion is that they’re a lot more trouble than they’re worth for home use. Now, that’s partly because they began to use the browser IN the thin client instead of JUST the remote desktop feature, so the performance was dismal.

They repurposed the terminals in a way that they weren’t designed to be fast since many of the modern web controls run on the client side. The built-in browser was miserably slow, and everyone hated the setup.

Had they stuck with just Citrix ICA or MS RDP, I think the experience would have been far more robust as expected. If you can be firm and only use them as remote displays as they were meant to be, you might also have the good experience.

The licensing, as you mentioned, can be a little expensive. Although if you use Microsoft Small Business Server, you can kill some of the licensing costs and probably come out ahead overall.

Unfortunately, I haven’t read up on the Linux TS project, so I’m not sure what that client and server system would entail.

What I do know is that if your kids are using computers at school for assignments or get homework, they will likely be working on Windows systems there. MS makes it cheap and easy for students and schools to have and use their products.

If you want them to have a more seamless experience at home, it’s going to mean using Windows in some flavor. But if you do it at the SBS, that’s a win. It’s also unlikely that games or learning tools on their favorite web sites will work outside of MS Internet Explorer, just because when games are developed, they do it for the largest common denominator, and that’s Windows with MSIE.

The one big thing I would caution on is peripherals… Will you have a way to use iTunes through remote desktop? Where does the Pod plug in? Mobile MP3 devices, CDROMs, DVDs. flash drives, cameras, scanners? Your kids have a game that requires the CD to play (nearly all games require the CD to play)? Someone’s going to have to run to the big beefy server every time and swap discs. That’s your blessing and your curse with a dumb terminal – all you get is redirected display, keyboard and mouse. No PnP.

That said, the Wyse S10 Thin Client looks like a good fit if you can live with the limitations.

It’s priced under $300 and comes with Windows CE that supports RDP up to version 5.5.

Windows Small Business Server is around $500-$600 with 5 clients included.

You might find a used server with the SBS bundled for less if you’re into bargain shopping.

I can’t imagine that you’ll find solid Windows desktop computers for $300 if you mean to license them legally.

I think the cost savings is there, overall, even if you decide to use Windows server and thin clients. But there’s a huge tradeoff in usability when you go down that road.

One thing that can save some time if you decide to use regular Windows XP machines instead of thin clients is “cloning” software. Get 5 machines the same, build it right once, get it all patched up and happy, then clone it. Save the entire hard disk to an image file so that if you ever need to fix up a virus or spyware infested machine, you just pop in a DVD with the cloned image and forget it. You have a new machine in 10 minutes. Makes troubleshooting a moot point.

But then you have to be diligent about saving unique documents and files OFF the machine on CDs or some other media or server. One way to do this would be to redirect all the My Documents folders to a cheap RAID NAS and keeping all the files there.

It’s a lot to think about. I don’t envy your situation. Good luck!

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Filed under: Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP)

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