Data Center Based Workstations

[ManagedAssets]

Hello, 

 

my first post, so this could be interesting. 

 

The abridged background: for tax purposes, I created a company to purchase and lease assets and tech. This was great when I was bulk purchasing simple assets and leveraging cash accounts to get a deal. Now, I made "friends" and there is a profitability opportunity to purchase for others as well. The problem with that, I am not "in the know" on a lot of tech stuff and have not and will not be able to get the staff together to meet the needs of the current requests (luckily not contracts). 

 

The Current Project: 

 

1. data center / server room delivery of desktop computing (PCoIP) - the room in question is a secure server room / data center.

2. initial research leads to something like this: Dell 7920 Rack Worksation I like this because it is a network connection to a zero client and away they go - they are desktops, but in another location and I am not having to figure out all of the virtual machines and hypervisors, etc (again, I have not had time to work out who to hire to help me with these clients as it has happened fast)

3. the end users are doing video work and CAD work. 

4. budget is flexible and custom builds are on the table

5. maintenance needs to be reasonable. 

6. i just started this a few hours ago. 

 

What am i Looking for: 

 

ideas at this point. I really want to explore all the options. Pre-configured, virtual desktop (even though i have zero clue on all of that), server chassis and components to build out some rack-based PC's connected over IP... really, I just need to be ready on Friday with ideas and after watching the 2015/2016 Personal Rig Update videos with the custom case and water cooling, i figured maybe there would be some information to gather on this community. I know enough about about tech and computers and operating systems, but what i lack is any experience in implementing "outside-the-box" 

 

Thanks

 

 

[AbsoluteFool]

From what i understand you've taken a job that is far over you're experience. Your best sulution is to cancel the job or hire someone to actually do it for you and charge the company for that.

[jde3]

Unfortunately you can't learn system administration from a forum. Maybe hire an intern.

[ManagedAssets]

5 hours ago, jde3 said:

Unfortunately you can't learn system administration from a forum. Maybe hire an intern.

I am not looking to learn system administration (as my post says, I am looking for ideas to bring to the table, the administration of those ideas is another story, I am looking to learn system options to seek out and explore and learn about the options available. It is a new concept to me to bring the PC from a server room and i would like to know the kind of things that can be done. 

 

I have 10 CVs and three contractors to hire / fill this roll, but not before a Friday meeting where the discussion is to be had. 

 

These are people I know and the time frame for implementing is a ways out, but the time frame to allocate funds is sooner. 

[ManagedAssets]

5 hours ago, AbsoluteFool said:

From what i understand you've taken a job that is far over you're experience. Your best sulution is to cancel the job or hire someone to actually do it for you and charge the company for that.

I have taken a job to help some long-time colleagues get an infrastructure together and spread the wealth of what i have been able to put together, there is some leeway here. Again, what i was hoping to get was some ideas of WHAT can be deployed

 

I have 10 CVs and 2-3 contractors I am looking at now, but that will not be deployed before the deal needs to be dealt with in terms of planning (they have a budget deadline and financial planning time frame). 

 

Thanks

[leadeater]

17 hours ago, ManagedAssets said:

the end users are doing video work and CAD work

High end work like this tends to take a lot of the virtual desktop options off the table. It can be done, we use VMware Horizon for it but very expensive. Dedicated PCoIP is much cheaper to license software wise but you do have to spend more on hardware.

 

Dell is actually pretty good at the PCoIP stuff with Zero clients, you should be able to contact a pre-sales engineer and talk to them. They'll give you most of the preparation information you need for your meeting.

[Mikensan]

Proper licensing for what you want to do is going to be expensive. Where I work we just bought a 50 CCU horizon advanced license pack and all in all it was about $40k. You could figure something out with Teradici and use their agents instead of Horizon, but managing multiple desktops would be a nightmare.

 

I'm not sure if your plan is 1:1, every user gets a physical desktop when they connect, or if you want to host multiple virtual desktops from a single piece of hardware? The latter is going to require specific graphics card that support being shared (nVidia GRID for example). What you linked is geared for more of a shared workstation than multiple virtual workstations.

 

As leadeater mentions, given the scope and need - your best bet is to talk to a sales engineer. More so since you'll be spending money with these vendors anyway. Hell depending on where you live they may come onsite to meet you to talk it over. Forums are going to take longer to get your answers and a lot is lost in written discussion.

[Salv8 (sam)]

On 4/17/2018 at 4:18 PM, ManagedAssets said:

-snip-

mate, for the job that you are stating, you are going to need to hire someone that has experience in this area random people on forums aren't going to be much help (sorry guys it's true) as this requires a lot more than just a post

i did a basic course in business (it comes in handy sometimes, like now) and even i can see that you need to hire someone who knows that they are doing so that this job can be completed

if you are going to do this while disregarding my comment, this will not end well and will cost you quite bit, i have warned you, don't come crying to me when this has failed...