9.2. Thin Clients

Before moving into discussing how to deploy virtualization applications, it is never a bad idea to pose a simple but important question: Why? As we've discussed, deploying multiple operating systems per host can create a large amount of overhead in all facets of your infrastructure, thus increasing the total cost of ownership of your overall environment. Why not deploy applications instead of entire operating system environments? The entire provisioning process occurs faster and upgrades happen centrally, thus there is no need for an additional infrastructure to support these operating systems.

One of the oldest and most stable thin client solutions with a Mac client is Citrix XenApp. Citrix can be used to publish a session, whether that session is an entire operating system environment or a single application. If you are considering deploying virtualization software to supply only a handful of non-native applications to your Mac users, consider Citrix as an alternative.

Microsoft also licensed Citrix technology to include Windows Server. This "Terminal Services" also fully supports a Remote Desktop Connection client for the Mac. You can download the Remote Desktop Connection at http://www.mactopia.com or use the open source CoRD at http://cord.sourceforge.net, which provides you with the ability to tap into multiple Windows RDP sessions concurrently. Terminal Services is going to be less costly than Citrix, but will also have fewer features and is best used when publishing an entire operating system environment, rather than a specific application.

The biggest drawback to a thin client environment is that access requires users to be online. This may or may not be detrimental to your user's productivity, but whether it is will generally be a pretty easy question to answer. With Wi-Fi showing up on flights around the country, high-speed cellular data networks, and a multitude of mobile devices that support the Remote Desktop Protocol (including the iPhone) thin clients are becoming a more and more accessible solution.