IXS with thin clients

["Jeff Crosby" <jlcrosby@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > 1) We now have more thin clients on terminal services than 
> PCs because 
> > that makes it easier to manage.
> 
> I am looking at doing some of that later this year.  Do you 
> mind sharing a few more specifics?  Is it delivering the 
> savings and ease that is promised?

The thin clients and IXS go hand in hand.  In Dec/2004 we got a 520 with an
IXS card running W2003 Server.  I took that opportunity to replace the 5
remaining dumb terminals with thin clients.  They are Neoware Capio One's
running "Neolinux", a version somehow tied to Red Hat.  They worked out well
enough that this past November I replaced the 4 remaining W98 machines and 1
W2K machine with 5 more thin clients.  All 10 run off that IXS card.  It's
wonderful.  I was concerned with CPU utilization, but it virtually never
gets above 15%.  Users use green screens, browser, email, Excel, Word,
Powerpoint, and Publisher to varying degrees.

We have one issue we're trying to resolve.  I got licenses for Citrix as
well, but I'm trying to run Terminal Services only.  Since TS isn't as
efficient as Citrix, there are some screen video refresh issues.  They
mostly show up at the 2 clients that use MS Publisher.  Once in a while
Excel is a problem.

We have swapped clients, cables, and flat panels among locations
individuaslly and collectively but cannot determine the culprit.
Interestingly, the thin clients running the _newest_ version of Neolinux are
the ones seeming to have the problem, but not always.  Amount of flash
memory in the thin clients doesn't seem to be a factor.  I have a call in to
Neoware for assistance, but no answers yet.

If we use Citrix, there is no problem.  But I'd like to avoid the Citrix
support costs, especially since there are fewer and fewer Citrix support
vendors around.  Three that I know of have stopped supporting it within the
last year locally.  All due to the high cost to them.

It was a great move and cut my support time a lot.