Red Hat Sun Ray's?

This week I spent most of my time working on Red Hat Sun Ray's. Red Hat? I though Sun made Sun Ray's why would they support Red Hat?

Actually Sun support's Red Hat and Solaris Native, meaning the Sun Ray Server Software is compiled for Red Hat and Solaris. Using Sun's Desktop Connector, or UTTSC, you can connect to any RDP enabled device. (Windows Terminal Server, Windows servers and using the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), you can connect to VM Ware Images that are part of a Pool and automaitically clone, start and shutdown.

The question isn't, can Sun Ray's work for you, it's which way to best impliment Sun Ray's for you.

All of this information can be found at: http://www.sun.com/desktop/

Sun Ray and Peripherals: Page 2

In my last update, I gave you a general overview of Sun Ray's and a General Architecture. This post will be on Peripherals. This post will assume you are using Sun Ray Server Software (SRSS). Each Thin Client solution has there own way of doing Peripherals

USB:

Today, USB Sticks and Devices work on the Sun Ray's. I have even hooked up a USB DVD ROM drive and it worked well. Remember, that these are all done over the Network, so the speed of the device attached to the USB port is directly affected by Network Speeds.
Network Speeds:

10 Mbs = 1.25 MBs

100 Mbs = 12.5 MBs

1 Gbs = 125 MBs

10 Gbs = 1250 MBs

The USB storage devices show up as Network drives. By default these are on the U drive. I haven't done anything with printers yet, so I won't speak on those

Serial:
First thing to know, is the baud rate on the Sun Ray serial port is 9600 Baud. If your device is anything other than 9600 Baud it won't communicate. I've tested 3 different serial devices from printers (IER) to Bar Code Readers (Desko) to Magnetic readers built into the Keyboard. They all work well. This week I hope to have them all hooked up to the same sunray to see how that goes.

I had to change the VDA script, to add in the Serial ports, as they are passed through to the UTTSC script automatically. This is in /etc/opt/SUNWvda/sessions I beleive.

I can add more about this if you want, just let me know.

Sun Ray and Peripherals: Page 1

Some of the biggest problems that customers have with "Thin" technology is External device support. Sun came out with Sun Ray's, our version of "Ultra - Thin" 10 years back. As usual, it took 10 years to create the perfect storm.

So what's the perfect storm?

1. RDP: 10 Years ago RDP didn't exisit. It wasn't until Version 5 (Which was actually version 2 as Version 4 was the first realease. Don't ask me why Microsoft did that.)
2. Vista Upgrade: Who really want's to go out and touch and replace all of these PC's again? Are companies getting sick of "Desktop" support?
3. Cost of Electricity: Keeps going UP and UP and UP
4. Economy: I'm not sure I need to say anything about this
5. HyperVisor support: This allows each person to have there "OWN" desktop for the day. Many "FAT" applications need to have there own Serial ports and IP address and do not like to share.

Shameless Sun Comercial

1. VDI: This allows a user to be assigned a pool. The pool will have a number of VirtualMachines started, but can, on the Fly, spin up more or decrease them when needed. So you don't need to have one VM per user in the Organization, just one per active user. This will cut down on the amount of software needed to purchase.
   
2. x86: 10 years ago, x86 wasn't part of Sun's portolio. It is today, which allows Sun to put together a full end to end solution for a customer.

Architecture

Below is an architecture that I put together for a customer. The great thing about Sun's implimentation of "Thin" is, it is very flexibile. From the same client, I can display Windows, Solaris, Linux, or a Mac Desktop. That's flexibility. It makes the OS more of a commidity that can be easily changed, as it all sits on the servers.

So you want to test Vista with a couple of users? Just create a vista pool and assign that user to it. You don't even need to leave the Data Center. Want to move them back? Have the log out and point the user back to the orginal Pool. It's that simple.

Below is a demo I just recently did with Windows on the left, Solaris in the middle and Linux on the Right. Yes that is a "Thin" laptop. No Hard Drive, No Solid State Disk, No memory. Just firmware to support Wireless, Wired, or Cellular connections.


Below is an architecture of a VMWARE/VDI environment. This is a small architecture. If you want to scale it, you can just do this multiple times. Want Redundency in Data Centers? No problem. Do one of these in each DC, and use a Global Load Bancer to balance acros DC's.
If you have any more questions, let me know, leave a comment