thin clients, library shared workstations, vdi for a perfect combo v07.15.11.txt

author: Randy J. Cress date:
Microsoft has matured their original Shared Computer Toolkit to Windows SteadyState. The new version is well documented and really becomes a player against existing Deepfreeze environments for libraries. The Windows Disk Protection feature is very similar and now supported scheduled update windows.

If this product were to be combined with thin clients at libraries along with VDI and a SteadyState prepared load of Windows XP you would have a great combo for an IT staff and librarian freedom for implementation of new software in computer lab or kiosk environments.

Utilizing thin clients, you could reduce the hardware costs and risk of theft or damage at the physical lab setting. Having the image run on backend servers would minimize replacement or addition time frame of new lab computers. This would work especially well if you utilized a single virtual drive that they all boot from..

Library staff would be able to make changes and add software very easily with wizard interface in the SteadyState application and then re-protect the hard drive after installation.

Once SteadyState 2.5 comes out of beta and supports Windows Vista, it would be just creating another image on the VDI servers and instructing then thin clients to run the new OS. You could even offer the lab users an option and have the library staff select the image based on their preference if needed.
tags:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

xenserver update v08.24.08.txt

author: Randy J. Cress date:
ok, while starting to building the new xenapp 4.5 farm (knowing 5.0 is right around the corner) I've decided not to scrap XenServer Enterprise and give the latest beta with NIC bonding and SAN FC multipathing a shot for our XenApp VMs along with Citrix PVS 5.0 (btw, Dell Flexible Computing has updated their download site) http://www.dell.com/flexiblecomputing Right now I don't have a problem saying we'll use XenCenter to manage the XenApp hosts running XenServer since the PVS servers are running in VMware ESX 3.5 along with the rest of the backend infrastructure.. I thought I would be stuck with no room for any shared storage since the SAN is fully carved with vmfs3 volumes and place from a Xen LVM but with Provisioning Server I can just stream the vDisks to the XenApp servers without a need for any hdd being visible to those VMs. On a side note, the VNC-based implementation for the console in XenCenter is not so cool.. it "feels" like VNC versus a guest run
read.more

using vlc to create a web-based vod library v07.18.11.txt

author: Randy J. Cress date:
There are many reasons why you would want to create Video-on-Demand library with a web interface.. training videos, past security recordings, news clips, etc.. My reason was different this weekend.. it is starting to become difficult to weed through all of the DVDs with children's show for my daughter. While she has no problems sorting through the DVDs and picking out a show to watch if we label it correctly, it still is time consuming and over time the discs become worn and damaged. I needed a way to create a video on demand library and have it easy to use for her. Since she can navigate around on the web just fine, I wanted to make it as simple as YouTube for point and click access to her shows. Enter VideoLAN VLC Player/Server Now we can do the following: TV -> DVR -> DVD -> VLC -> RTSP -> PC = Happy Child The quick and dirty approach for serving DVDs over wired/wireless for VOD via the web: Download and install VLC 0.8.6c here . Copy the entire VIDEO
read.more

an outlook for security improvements in 2019 v18.12.24.txt

author: date:
As we wrap up 2018, my news feeds and various email inboxes are littered with security breaches, security vendor hardware, software and training solutions. All citing an infamous undertone of someone that clicked on a bad link ultimately ending in unwanted code execution that led to more code execution and finally data exfiltration. I am taken aback by our current ecosystem of general purpose operating systems and their bloated sense of "purpose".  When is the last time you purchased multi-layer security solutions for your best of breed gaming platforms in your home network environment?  How often do you bludgeon your children's minds with security awareness training when downloading skins, avatars, games and expansion packs from the respective console gaming platforms online stores?  Do you recognize the computational power, network connectivity and deeply connected devices in your most personal home networks linked to video cameras, door locks and vast array of se
read.more