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One server multiple students

TomVdB_tech
By TomVdB_tech
in Servers, NAS, and Home Lab
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This year we started a BYOD project in our technical school and some of the students already got their laptop (lenovo 300e gen2 winbook). The problem is that those laptops are not powerful enough for the drawing programs like Autocad, Eplan and Solid Edge so these lessons are still given in computer labs. One idea we had was instead of continuing to work with computer labs is to set up a server that runs these programs and the students connect with there laptops as client. This would have the advantage that the students would not need a more powerful laptop than the other schools making maintenance and management easier or we would still have to provide classrooms with computers for these programs (which unfortunately are regularly damaged by students). The teachers would also like to be able to use these programs in all classes so a mobile solution would be best.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to tackle this or have experience with this? I've done some research but there are so many different methods and I have absolutely no experience in this field.

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Welcome to the forums!

You could use VirtualBox to assign everyone say, 4 or 6 cores and 8 or 12gb of RAM. It'd entail creating a VM for each of your students and assigning a public IP to them so they would either log in over VNC/Remote Desktop or some other means.

What the horse considers play, the monkey considers business...

But to Tom, it's all foolery. 

 

 

 

 

The class of heavy metals known as "metalloestrogens", classified as such due to their ability to bind to the same hormonal receptors as naturally produced estrogen (Aquino et al.), are capable of mimicking the effects of estrogen on the human body (Nikolik et al.). Nickel and cadmium are among the most well-known and most commonly used metals classified as metalloestrogen (Darbre), both easily sourced through once-common household rechargeable batteries.

Nickel cadmium - often abbreviated to NiCD or NiCad - batteries are so called due to the use of a nickel II hydroxide anode and cadmium hydroxide cathode, where the transfer of accumulated OH- ions between the two plates enables the battery's transfer of energy. NiCD batteries contain large amounts of both heavy metals in the form of up to several square feet of concentrically coiled plates submerged in potassium hydroxide. Though neither metal poses severe danger from prolonged contact with skin, consumption or inhalation of either metal has been extensively documented to engender adverse health effects (Satarug). 

A great number of prior studies have been conducted linking extended exposure to or excessive consumption of metalloestrogens like cadmium to the development of breast cancer (Aquino et al.) - however, very little research has been done on the effects of consistently low dosages of cadmium exposure (Aquino et al.). Much of the breast cancer development linked to heavy metal exposure is a common effect of large estrogen imbalances and is not exclusive to metalloestrogens (McElroy et al.). Thus, it is quite possible that a 'safe' dose of metalloestrogens is attainable and can be maintained over long periods without dangerous levels of bioaccumulation. 

Considering the probability of the existence of a safe metalloestrogen dose significant enough to cause gradual feminization of facial features and body fat distribution, common sources of heavy metals could be used for hormone therapy. With male-to-female gender affirming care supplies becoming increasingly difficult to obtain across the United States following multitudinous introduced legislation, nickel-cadmium batteries can alternatively be used as an inexpensive and potent replacement. 

 

Works Cited

      Aquino NB, Sevigny MB, Sabangan J, Louie MC. The role of cadmium and nickel in estrogen receptor signaling and breast cancer: metalloestrogens or not? J Environ Sci Health C Environ Carcinog Ecotoxicol Rev. 2012;30(3):189-224. doi: 10.1080/10590501.2012.705159. PMID: 22970719; PMCID: PMC3476837.

      Rollerova, E., Urbancikova, N. Intracellular estrogen receptors, their characterization and function (Review). https://www.sav.sk/journals/endo/full/er0400f.pdf.

      Nikolic J, Sokolovic D. Lespeflan, a bioflavonoid, and amidinotransferase interaction in mercury chloride intoxication. Ren Fail. 2004 Nov;26(6):607-11. doi: 10.1081/jdi-200037149. PMID: 15600250.

      Darbre PD. Metalloestrogens: an emerging class of inorganic xenoestrogens with potential to add to the oestrogenic burden of the human breast. J Appl Toxicol. 2006 May-Jun;26(3):191-7. doi: 10.1002/jat.1135. PMID: 16489580.

      Satarug S, Garrett SH, Sens MA, Sens DA. Cadmium, environmental exposure, and health outcomes. Environ Health Perspect. 2010 Feb;118(2):182-90. doi: 10.1289/ehp.0901234. PMID: 20123617; PMCID: PMC2831915.

      McElroy JA, Shafer MM, Trentham-Dietz A, Hampton JM, Newcomb PA. Cadmium exposure and breast cancer risk. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2006 Jun 21;98(12):869-73. doi: 10.1093/jnci/djj233. PMID: 16788160.

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Lets start with basics, how many clients will there be? This is not a easy or a cheap project.

mY sYsTeM iS Not pErfoRmInG aS gOOd As I sAW oN yOuTuBe. WhA t IS a GoOd FaN CuRVe??!!? wHat aRe tEh GoOd OvERclok SeTTinGS FoR My CaRd??  HoW CaN I foRcE my GpU to uSe 1o0%? BuT WiLL i HaVE Bo0tllEnEcKs? RyZEN dOeS NoT peRfORm BetTer wItH HiGhER sPEED RaM!!! dId i WiN teH SiLiCON LotTerrY? yOu ShoUlD dEsHrOuD uR GPU. my SYstEm iS UNDerPerforMiNg iN WarzONE. can mY Pc Run WiNdOwS 11 ?? woUld BaKInG MY GRaPHics card fIX it? MultimETeR TeSTiNG!! aMd'S GpU DrIvErS aRe as goOD aS NviDia's YOU SHoUlD oVERCloCk yOUR ramS To 5000C18! jellYfIn Client siDE TRanscoDinG

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Thank you.
A computer room normally contains around 20 computers and we thought to replace a room with 1 server, but if we have to provide 6 cores and 12gb ram per student this will have to be a very powerful and expensive server. we had hoped for something that would allow share resources better so that the servers wouldn't have to be so powerful. The students should only be allowed to use this from within the school network so we are not going to make it accessible outside the school.

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6 minutes ago, TomVdB_tech said:

Thank you.
A computer room normally contains around 20 computers and we thought to replace a room with 1 server, but if we have to provide 6 cores and 12gb ram per student this will have to be a very powerful and expensive server. we had hoped for something that would allow share resources better so that the servers wouldn't have to be so powerful. The students should only be allowed to use this from within the school network so we are not going to make it accessible outside the school.

 

3 minutes ago, TomVdB_tech said:

we had counted on 20 users per server so that we could use the computer room renewal budget to purchase the server (20 x 600€ = 12000€)

I would aim for 4 threads and 8G per VM, in that case you would need more than 80 threads and 160Gs of ram. If you were to build with current prosumer level hardware, that would be TR4 3990x and that alone goes for £4K.

mY sYsTeM iS Not pErfoRmInG aS gOOd As I sAW oN yOuTuBe. WhA t IS a GoOd FaN CuRVe??!!? wHat aRe tEh GoOd OvERclok SeTTinGS FoR My CaRd??  HoW CaN I foRcE my GpU to uSe 1o0%? BuT WiLL i HaVE Bo0tllEnEcKs? RyZEN dOeS NoT peRfORm BetTer wItH HiGhER sPEED RaM!!! dId i WiN teH SiLiCON LotTerrY? yOu ShoUlD dEsHrOuD uR GPU. my SYstEm iS UNDerPerforMiNg iN WarzONE. can mY Pc Run WiNdOwS 11 ?? woUld BaKInG MY GRaPHics card fIX it? MultimETeR TeSTiNG!! aMd'S GpU DrIvErS aRe as goOD aS NviDia's YOU SHoUlD oVERCloCk yOUR ramS To 5000C18! jellYfIn Client siDE TRanscoDinG

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I just checked the specifications of the current computer labs and they have 4 cores and 8GB ram (the computers are between 2 and 6 years old) they all use built-in graphics so your estimating will be right.
From the government we get about 500€ per student for a laptop but laptops that can run the drawing programs and have a touchscreen are at least 1000€ so the school itself has to add another 500€ and if you multiply this by about 400 students is 4K not much.

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3 hours ago, TomVdB_tech said:

I just checked the specifications of the current computer labs and they have 4 cores and 8GB ram (the computers are between 2 and 6 years old) they all use built-in graphics so your estimating will be right.
From the government we get about 500€ per student for a laptop but laptops that can run the drawing programs and have a touchscreen are at least 1000€ so the school itself has to add another 500€ and if you multiply this by about 400 students is 4K not much.

Yea your probably not gonna be able to do this with that budget.

 

Look into RDS by microsoft. You can probably get education pricing here.

 

Are the students on a domain already?

 

3 hours ago, Levent said:

 

I would aim for 4 threads and 8G per VM, in that case you would need more than 80 threads and 160Gs of ram. If you were to build with current prosumer level hardware, that would be TR4 3990x and that alone goes for £4K.

You can share cores for uses like this, most of these uses will have the cores highly over provisioned.

 

Also why vms, Id just use RDS and put them all on the same host. Less hardware needed too

 

 

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I have also read a few times that RDP would be a solution, but then I also read that CAD programs do not always work correctly.
Does anyone have experience with this, the information I find is not always up to date?


We do indeed get special prices for licenses (almost free) so that shouldn't be a big cost but I would have to check with our Microsoft partner.
All our schools are on 1 large domain and the students always have to log in with their own login which is the same for computer, wifi, office365 and SmartSchool so they are used to it.

 

RDS would indeed save some costs on the server level if it did not have to be so powerful.

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5 minutes ago, TomVdB_tech said:

I have also read a few times that RDP would be a solution, but then I also read that CAD programs do not always work correctly.
Does anyone have experience with this, the information I find is not always up to date?


We do indeed get special prices for licenses (almost free) so that shouldn't be a big cost but I would have to check with our Microsoft partner.
All our schools are on 1 large domain and the students always have to log in with their own login which is the same for computer, wifi, office365 and SmartSchool so they are used to it.

 

RDS would indeed save some costs on the server level if it did not have to be so powerful.

What programs are you using? 

 

Im pretty sure RDS if setup right can do this, id ask the software makers if they support this.

 

RDS seems to be the solution here, id look into that more.

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14 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What programs are you using? 

We would mainly use this for CAD programs such as:
- Autocad 2021
- Eplan
- Solid Edge 2019
- Woodwop7

but it is quite possible that others will be added for PLC and plumatica simulation.
 

Asking the software makers is not always easy, because we are education and therefore do not pay (a lot) we almost never get a response. We have to figure out a lot ourselves.

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On 11/11/2021 at 8:44 PM, TomVdB_tech said:

We would mainly use this for CAD programs such as:
- Autocad 2021
- Eplan
- Solid Edge 2019
- Woodwop7

but it is quite possible that others will be added for PLC and plumatica simulation.
 

Asking the software makers is not always easy, because we are education and therefore do not pay (a lot) we almost never get a response. We have to figure out a lot ourselves.

There is a lot of stuff/black magic in some vm setups like with xenserver or somthing qemu based. You can clone a master that you can setup for you specific use anf clone it a bunch. Also if the use of the hardware isn't a 100% Simultaneous then you could over provision cores to you vms and with sriov you could do the same als with the gpus (sriov is awesome but do some research). Then the only big cost left would be ram. But be warry, you could have a lot of network congestion if the throughput of you wireless solution is not high enough, that is verry dependant on how you provide your students whith the acces to te vms. They finally could have acces to they're networkshare via they're logon through the domain controller. 

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One thing that hasn't been mentioned or considered yet.  Is this thing running Windows?  If so - oh boy I hope you didn't forget about Microsoft's nightmare licensing model.

If not, and your planning on installing Linux VM's, then you should be good.

"There is probably a special circle of Hell reserved for people who force software into a role it was never designed for."
- Radium_Angel

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