(pagina in het Nederlands)
How many Linux Desktops did you connect already?
By Michel van Horssen (OpenSource Nieuws Nederland)
Translation by Rinse de Vries
source: Open Source Nieuws Nederland
Project
SVMG (Dutch Refugee Council (region) Midden-Gelderland)
wants to connect 15 locations spread in their region to a central server and let them operate with the same software.
There are 100 workstations and over 200 users involved.
Conditions
As cheap as possible and the usage of closed source software should be as little as possible.
The Set-up
15 locations, including the head office, needed to be connected to servers located at the central office of Dutch Refugee Council in Amsterdam. The central system administration will done there.
Technical Bit
At first they chose the LTSP Project. But because of the bandwith required by the X Window Protocol and the fact that LTSP does not offer any compression, like Citrix does, it could not be used. Somewhere down the path the decision was made to use NX technology of NoMachine instead. The NX Client had to be sent to the PC's were going to be used as thin clients. This could not be done using the LTSP Project, so the switch was made to the ThinStation Project, that could handle this at that moment. The connections to the central office is done by KPN via their Epacity Network. Data and X Sessions are separated by using different servers.
Applications
The daily work could be done using existing Linux Applications, like
OpenOffice.org and Kontact.
There was one company specific application that depended on a FoxPro database. This was solved by the application manager of the central office. He wrote a web based solution that works with a MySQL database. When a location switches to the new system, then the data of the FoxPro Database will also be converted to the new environment. The advantage of the new solution is that database became central which made the exchange of data between the locations a lot easier.
Progress
The project started in 2003. In that year the first tests with a local network were done and half 2004, after a few tests with a connection between Arnhem and Amsterdam the decision was made to continue with the current design and to start the rollout of the locations. This happens in phases of 3 weeks per location with evaluation moments in between. Half 2005 the project is completed and all locations can communicate with each other because they work fysically on the same server.
What was used
Except for the mentioned standard and company specific applications there are a number of projects, without them we could never have realized this network.
NX from NoMachine which brought their product to the world at the right time with the right price. ThinStation that came at the right moment with a beta of their NX Client. Kiosktool, that silenced our discussion about KDE/Gnome to only one option: KDE. LTSP, because they made it possible for us to show SVMG that there was an alternative for Windows Terminal Services.
The Future
There are already signs that other regions want to setup their ICT in a similar way and want us to deliver the services for it. Also we probably need at least one more NX Server for SVMG to serve all workstations. So we should consider load balancing. We already have an eye on a project that could help us.
People
Michel van Horssen showed the possibilities of Open Source to SVMG, and is since then working daily on the project.
Arthur Hilstra was involved at the first phase of the project and convinced together with Michel SVMG about the feasibility of the project and also played a great part in solving the problems we encountered during testing.
Arthur has been followed up by Jasper van der Marel, who because of his involvement in KDE Netherlands and the knowledge of this desktop delivered a large contribution to the final realization of the project. Together with Michel he is now responsible for the project, and they both work on solutions and extensions.
Adi Colic, as system administrator of SVMG, did all the local work that was necessary during the preparation of every location before the transformation and will be the first point of contact for the users.
Frans Bus, project leader at the side of SVMG, who besides the coordination also had to listen to the problems of the users and us.
The most important person in this list is of course Jan van der Werff, who, as director of SVMG had the vision and faith in us. Even when tests did not work out as expected he kept believing in this solution.
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