Nitin, I would conservatively recommend about 1Gig of RAM and one 2.4GHz or higher processor for every 10 concurrent users. If the load incurred by each user is modest, you could easily stretch that to 20 users. In my experience the greatest loads are incurred by the Java VM browser plugin, Macromedia Flash browser plugin, and Crossover Office (Wine + MS Office apps). Open Office is easy on the CPU, but still a big memory hog.
Opting for a single, fast server will simplify and reduce the requirements for maintenance and software administration. If you must use more than one server, try to separate the user accounts between the servers. Avoid implementing a "load balancing" approach which is likely to be costly, complicated, and have poor disk performance for the users' home directories. For disk storage, make sure you are running RAID with redundancy (RAID1, RAID5, RAID10, etc.). Use USB 2.0 hard drives to make your backups when the system load is the smallest (i.e. very early morning). For the USB pen drive storage you should be able to use the LTSP floppy solution (mtools + floppyd). I have no experience with a CD ROM drive on the thin client. I suspect that CD burning on the thin clients would be difficult because that requires that the server be extremely responsive so as not to starve the CD writer for data, and that the data pipe to the CD writer have a sustained capacity greater than the CD writer uses (could be 20 MBytes / second or higher). One solution for the CD-reading and writing would be to have a few "community" workstations with CD burners networked to the LTSP server so the users can access their home directories. These workstations should have enough CPU, RAM, and local hard drive storage to properly burn CD-R's. You would need to use NIS, LDAP, or Samba (for Windows workstations) for proper user authentication with the LTSP server. Best regards, JDR On Tuesday 27 January 2004 08:00 am, Nitin Putcha wrote: > Hello, > > Does anyone here have experience deploying an LTSP solution (over > Debian/Knoppix) for a large number of clients? We are evaluating LTSP for > our entire university, and may have over 100 users (with maybe 50 > concurrent users), and that’s just phase 1. Phase 2 will be 100 more. My > LTSP deplyment vendor is recommending just one large server with 4 gigs of > RAM. My thumb rule is 50-64mb RAM per client. Anyone care to detail their > experiences? > > Specifically: > -One or more servers? How to run 2+ LTSP servers if the DHCP ports will > conflict? Can each server use a diff. set of ports? Client config for 2+ > servers? > -If file services are run off a separate server, do I need a live backup > for the LTSP server? An hour of downtime wont hurt, but a half-day's > downtime will. > -USB pen drive storage on the client? > -CD-ROM drive on the client? CD-writing? > > Also to any LTSP pros in Mumbai, India. We're hiring SysAdmins for this > setup :) > > Thanks > Nitin > Nitin(at)nitinputcha,com > > > --- > Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. > Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). > Version: 6.0.564 / Virus Database: 356 - Release Date: 1/19/2004 > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > The SF.Net email is sponsored by EclipseCon 2004 > Premiere Conference on Open Tools Development and Integration > See the breadth of Eclipse activity. February 3-5 in Anaheim, CA. > http://www.eclipsecon.org/osdn > _____________________________________________________________________ > Ltsp-discuss mailing list. To un-subscribe, or change prefs, goto: > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ltsp-discuss > For additional LTSP help, try #ltsp channel on irc.freenode.net -- ============================================================= John D. Robertson, Computer / Engineering Consultant Robertson & Robertson Consultants, Inc. 3637 West Georgia Rd. Pelzer, SC 29669 Phone: (864) 243-2436 Fax: (864) 243-3023 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www.rrci.com ------------------------------------------------------- The SF.Net email is sponsored by EclipseCon 2004 Premiere Conference on Open Tools Development and Integration See the breadth of Eclipse activity. February 3-5 in Anaheim, CA. http://www.eclipsecon.org/osdn _____________________________________________________________________ Ltsp-discuss mailing list. To un-subscribe, or change prefs, goto: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ltsp-discuss For additional LTSP help, try #ltsp channel on irc.freenode.net
