Thin Schools or Thin Clients and/or VDI but 100% network fundamentals.

[Donal O]

c @Chris R, @Tom L, @John H @Peter L from previous VDI thread https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/cesi-list/VDI%7Csort:date/cesi-list/cWvhFP78x0w/XQdT7xmnBwAJ

Anyone other than Bandon Grammar school and Hermes project had success with VDI(Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) and/or thin clients (one flavour uses VMware and is still primarily Windows + AD).

I consider a "thin" school to be the future but it might be different from others perception i.e it does not mean traditional "thin clients". ChromeOS is effectively a "thin" OS and a web first environment. 

Brandon Grammar School makes a compelling argument below (basically the virtualization / shared compute model) but glosses over on-premises costs + expertise + VMware licensing + AD + Windows admin (albeit centralized) + VPN + remote access + backups + storage + YoY/YRC(Yearly Recurring Costs). And any talk of managed "cloud" VDI requires rock solid - SUPER low latency redundant Internet connections.

VIDEO of Bandon Grammar School presentation from "HEAnet National Conference 2017" : https://conferences.heanet.ie/2017/talk/90

Note: VDI still requires copious centralized compute/storage/expertise on-premises = more complexity... and without solid/redundant network you can't do VDI from cloud. I've used thin clients since 2005 in certain production/DR environments for wholesale banks *yet* a touchscreen 'mobile' device with full physical keyboard (~ Acer R11) + WLAN/LAN/Internet to SaaS applications still leapfrog VDI (except for specialist resource hungry apps).

Am still an advocate of Chromebooks/ChromeOS + upstream GOOG management (yet they require solid/fast LAN/WLAN and Internet + dependent upon your risk tolerance -> redundant Internet connections).

Humble regards,

Donal O Duibhir

https://www.linkedin.com/in/podomere

[J Muller]

Interesting example. Creative. I thought Ireland had no VDIs in schools, they did not have any LTSP schools (Akoshi/Linux for Schools nor Skolelinux/Debian Edu).  For a small country that delivered Mint, Solus, Zorin and Tails to the world the actual linux uptake in schools is surprisingly low. 

 

I think that for schools the reliability of the connections will be a potential problem. All VDI environments struggle with the desire of users to "work locally"  and enjoy the perceived freedom of using data and self-installed programs.

I think a modern school infrastructure will be cloud-based for a couple of reasons:

- Increased connectivity allows outsourcing specialised tasks to specialised providers. A Dutch cluster of schools that went serverless was soon after searching for a web-based school-library-software provider to replace the Win-based school-library software they were using. Now they have web-based anywhere anytime access to their wee corner in a library software host.  another example is Project Ceibal in Uruguay which started with complex fedora+Sugar-desktop an evolved over time to Schoolology+Gdrive+Chromebooks or other devices of choice and their own central repository for lessons, info etc.. 

- Connection-interruptions were essential part of the design of the internet-protocols. PC-centric software assumes the storage is close to the CPU and if you mess with it you can expect high error-rates, occasional damaged files (file-servers are known for this, same problem with trying to store files in a connected webdav-folders ) etc. In 10 years of google-docs usage I have not had any damaged file. A solution like OnlyOffice will reliably store in webdav server->server, much more reliably than using a web-drive to save files to on a PC. Schools can go paperless with hundreds of kids making their notes on Chromebooks in Gdrive without any files getting damaged when a connection gets disrupted. Off-line working has limited possibilities, but synchronisation works really well in most situations.  

- Correct balance between freedom of choice of client devices and solutions combined with extremely reliable centralised services in centralised environments.

I read about a former MAC-only school introducing Chromebooks to complement their MAC-labs and iPads. Worked well. I read about Win-schools adopting Chromebooks for many tasks, but keeping Win-labs with video-editing and other specialised software. Works. I have read about..... any configs and setups. 

Aside from G Suite and O365 I think the major factor that will allow clouds to be used in schools more will be the uptake of standardised web-based leaning management tools like schoolology, Canvas etc. 

MS may compete more with their products. Apple too. There might even be increased Linux uptake in schools. We'll see. 

Just my 2c, of course. 

[John Hegarty]

We ran 15 LTSP thin clients for about 10 years in recreation areas in the school - circa 2000-2010.  Worked fine, very reliable but in the end we didn't replace them. I had some old but still functional computers I was moving out of the computer room and it made more sense to move these to the recreation areas as they were rather than spending money on new thin clients as the old ones were becoming too slow to support current versions of linux. - Link to photo from 2009 showing 3 computers from our computer room with Windows, OS X and thin client Edubuntu https://photos.app.goo.gl/D6vBw2f7ymPLmxlt1 It was a real pain getting these to integrate so students could save files on the desktop on one and the same files would appear on their desktop on the others. Openoffice (might have been still NeoOffice flavour on the macs at that stage) was the default word processor and Firefox was the default web browser across all three. 

We continue to have a lot of Linux stuff on the server end of things but no client (thick or thin) Linux machines except for a Pi in the computer room. I'm favouring ChromeOS now for general purpose stuff like word processing, presentations, research etc. and we still have a fair few Mac and Windows machines available. I'm guessing we may buy more ChromeOS machines when the time comes to replace existing Mac and Windows machines.

With the introduction of Leaving Cert Computer Science I'm thinking I might explore having some linux laptops to play with. We could go with Raspberry Pi's but while they are simply amazing for what they are they are a bit slow when it comes to general purpose computing or anything a bit heavy on the browser. 

jh

--
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "CESI-list" group.
To post to this group, send email to cesi...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cesi-list+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cesi-list?hl=en-GB where all messages are archived and are publically available to non members of the list. Messages may also show up in search engines etc.
Visit the web site www.cesi.ie
Attempts to use the list for commercial purposes may result removal from the list.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CESI-list" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cesi-list+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to cesi...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/cesi-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[J Muller]

Thanks for the info. Apologies for not being aware of your setup.I had read about a couple of Irish registered schools in linux-sources, but they were all "have set up test-environment looking for server-budget" type of things i thought, though a pimary school in Tralee may have had one in 2004, but no big implementations. I do admire Karoshi for keeping trying in the UK, but uptake is limited. I also came across an american school district opting for Ubuntu instead of ChromeOS. So there are some candle-bearers out there. 

I'd go for ChromeOS too. Cheap, few problems. Web-nased. Though I have only touched one in a shop and don't own one (my employer uses Java and O2016). Privately I do use Manjaro which is fun for my use, not sure about implementing it in a school for others, though. 

I came across many ChromeOS examples when searching on the continent for examples, except for Germany. The only school I found there, so far, turned out to be some refugees being educated in Dachau. Reminded me of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VH4c0-p-CY

Anyway, I like G Suite for education for its ease and always working aspects, and I think the collaboration are unmatched. 

Cheers,

J.