Transcript Targeting Desktop Virtualisation with Linux Thin Clients The year of desktop Linux....again Jason Meers, Energi PLC.

Targeting Desktop Virtualisation with
Linux Thin Clients
The year of desktop Linux....again
Jason Meers, Energi PLC
Jason Meers
• MBCS CITP – Chartered IT Professional
• IT Advisor to the Cabinet Office
• IT Advisor to the Shadow Cabinet
• Member of the NCC Green IT and Cloud
Computing advisory boards
• Member of the BCS Green IT and Data Centre
specialist working groups
Why consider it?
• Reduced budgets = need to find cost savings without
any loss of efficiency
• Carbon Reduction Commitment requires the ability to
measure and reduce carbon
• Social and Corporate responsibility, by targeting a
specific area it is easier to demonstrate green
credentials
• Secure your data. By utilising Virtual Desktops all data
storage is contained in a secure, managed environment
Why implement it?
Savings
Cash Carbon
Energy costs
Air conditioning costs
PC procurement & disposal
Engineers & support staff
Remote working
DR & server redundancy
Virtualisation
Legal & social obligations
Additional Benefits of Desktop Virtualisation
Security Compliance Agility
Physical Security
Data Security
Backup / DR
Flexible / Scalable
Multi-user
Multi-site
Multi-national
If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it
Cash Carbon
IT based energy costs
Air conditioning
PC procurement & disposal
Engineers & support staff
Patches & updates
Unlicenced & unwanted apps
Viruses, trojans & spyware
Purchase & deployment costs
Per 1000 PC’s:
• Thin Clients can reduce your costs by up to 80%.
• Using a legacy PC or thin client you already own is
much more cost effective than buying a new PC and
Windows licence every 3-5 years.
• Typically the saving is £350k per 1000 desktops every
3-5 years in purchase costs alone (based on a new PC
cost of £350-£500)
Management & maintenance costs (per 1,000)
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No Operating System to install
No applications to install
No user customisation required
Air conditioning, installation & running costs
Which means less time, money and energy
spent on housekeeping tasks that don’t add any
direct commercial value to the business
Energy consumption
Traditional – Insecure & inflexible
A real alternative – Desktop Virtualisation
• Install a Windows Terminal Server, Virtualisation
Server or use the “cloud”.
• Select a group of PC’s or thin client devices.
• Install a read-only thin client OS
• The PC’s and thin clients will then pick up all
configuration information from the network and
connect to the Terminal Server using existing
account information and user settings.
How it works
• Creates a virtual desktop from existing PC’s or
thin client devices.
(regardless of make, model or age)
• The Operating System can be installed locally
or booted over the network using PXE.
• Allows for central deployment & configuration
of 1,000’s of devices from a single source.
Read Only OS – Secure & Flexible
A comparison – Cash & Carbon
Where shouldn't you do this?
In very intensive applications such as:
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Computer Aided Design (CAD)
Computer Aided Manufacture (CAM)
Fluid dynamics and physics modelling
Scientific and mathematic computation
With some older MS-DOS or 16bit applications
designed before Windows95.
Where should you do this?
In a Windows 98, 2000, XP, Vista or Windows7
environment with:
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Office applications
Email
Web browsing
Applications designed for Windows2000 or above.
Or anywhere a standardised, secure, flexible
desktop is required with minimal ongoing costs.
Summary results of implementation for 1000 PC’s over 5 years
Cash Savings:
• Purchase and deployment
• Energy savings
• Physical install/repair/remove costs
• IT staff costs to manage and maintain
£
£
£
£
350,000
500,000
50,000
400,000
At least £1.3 Million
over the 5 years
Carbon savings:
• Replacement costs
• Yearly running costs
• Reduced consumption of Air-Con
62,500 tonnes of CO2
2,500 tonnes of CO2
800 tonnes of CO2
What kind of device is suitable?
Processor:
A Pentium II processor or above*
Pentium III 700Mhz recommended
Memory:
64Mb RAM
128Mb recommended
Storage:
16-64Mb HDD, disk-on-chip or USB device
None – Use PXE network boot
*(Including: VIA Eden, C3, C7 or Nano & Intel Atom or AMD Geode)
The Numbers
Case Study
Grammar school with 750 students.
1000 users in total including teachers and parents
with remote access.
150 concurrent users at any one time from nine
different school buildings
The Existing Environment
200 PC’s were due to be replaced at a cost of £110,000
200 old PC’s were to have hard-drives overwritten to wipe
them of all sensitive data before being sent off to Africa
Someone went round switching PC’s on in the morning as
they took so long to boot.
IT manager dials in remotely each night to shut PC’s down if
it “seems” safe to do so.
One full-time member of staff permanently busy re-imaging
and fixing desktops as and when they require attention
The New Environment
1x Juniper hardware firewall for remote access
3x VMware ESX servers with 8cores and 16GB RAM
1 server used for all “infrastructure roles”
2 servers used for Terminal Services 2008 farm
Desktops converted to PXE boot thin clients
All client configuration information stored centrally
Existing Active Directory profiles and policies used
A comparison
New System:
All hardware, configuration and support for 3 yrs
£47,100
Existing solution:
Electricity savings compared to old system over 3yrs
£47,164
Cost of implementing new System over 3yrs:
£ -64
Other benefits
•Not having to replace PC’s in batches Of 200 at £110k a
time every few years.
•Allowing IT staff to concentrate on “productive IT” instead
of a continual reimage/replace cycle.
•Savings on air conditioning and cooling costs
•Having a read-only desktop client that is immune to
Windows viruses, spyware & trojans.
•Simplicity
Any Questions?
Jason Meers, MBCS CITP
MCP, MCDST, MCTS, MCITP, MCSA, VMware-VSP, VMware-VTSP,
A+, Network+, Server+, Linux+, Security+, ITIL & Prince2