Terminal services vs Citrix

[mjbosko]

I may be way out there on this question, not being totally familiar with the technology yet - but, could I get some feedback on where someone would want to use Win2K terminal services versus expanding that to a Citrix server technology for remote office software access?

 

[Davetoo]

If you get do what you want to do using Terminal Services, it's a whole lot cheaper than Citrix. But, you have to factor in administration of the TS vs Citrix.

I'm Certifiable, not certified.
It just means my answers are from experience, not a book.

 

[victorv]

hi,

for a IT manager the choice, from a financial view of
point is easy: what you need to buy for Terminal Server
are pre-requisite for Citrix. Then you have to buy

I Licence of Windows 2000 Server
J Windows 2000 CAL
K Terminal Server CAL
L Application (ie Office)

where

I = number of server
J = number of client devices
K = number of NO Win2k-PRO or XP-pro clients
( W9x, NT4, XPhome, WMe, WinCE, Winterm )
L = number that clients that can use (also rarely) Office
(No concurrent criteria may be applied)

If you buy Citrix Metaframe, You have to buy X License

where

X = number of concurrent clients that use Metaframe
(it is indipendent from the number of server)

When and Why Citrix ?

Sure:
- Clients are not Win16 or Win32 based (Unix,mac,dos,ecc)

Strongly Suggested:
- Transmission is over a slow connection line (modem)

Suggested:
- More than 1 server (easy deploying of appllication)
- Pubblished Application (group+user associated)
- Printers drivers replication
- Real Load Balancing between servers
- ...

bye

 

[AJP69]

We run a small citrix setup and are expanding, we found the Citrix license model of $400 per client way too much to pay unless you are a major organisation. I know they do cheaper versions but what is the point of paying more and getting a stunted product.

I also decided to look around at the forums and boards to see how many problems there are with both. TS problems tend to be setup issues, printers etc. Citrix sadly seem to have more serious faults that are related to their different releases. My gut feeling is that MS is looking to shaft Citrix in the near future, it reminds me of the old Novell days when each company's latest releases upset each others software. Meanwhile we pick up the pieces or hotfixes. Citrix will have to work hard to keep ahead, but seems to be pricing itself at the niche end of the market.

As we get the TS cal free as part of an enterprise agreement (and most people get it with W2k or XP on Windows server 2000 but not 2003). I decided to try TS first and only add citrix if we came across a show stopper.

TS has worked very well, RDP5 is much improved over RDP4 and even faster than ICA on metaframe 1.8. Citrix may be faster still, but with an app that loads in 2 seconds hundreds of miles away, I am not complaining. I should point out we put gigabit NICs beween the servers and gave them their own subnet for server to server comms (TS to SQL server).

The printers have been a bit of a pig to setup, mainly cos TS does not support things like bi-directional printing. It also prefers the RDC client to the TS client, but the former does not fully support like W98/NT.

For your decision it is always going to be about how many servers and apps you have. If you have lots of either Citrix offers a more complex start but a simpler ongoing life.

 

[jrIStech]

-my opinion; citrix cost too much, no need for it; just regular terminal services (citrix basically IS terminal services; but a more advanced feature; like an add-in)