Custom RemoteFX RDS Farm – Farm Architecture + Hardware Specs

This entry is part 2 of 5 in the series Custom RemoteFX RDS Farm

Following on from my first post I am going to look at what will make up by RemoteFX RDS farm including the software and hardware architecture. First I’ve started out as you would with any small RDS farm; in this case with 4 session hosts and a single connection broker (which will also act as licence server). The 30 endpoints are pointed… Read more



Custom RemoteFX RDS Farm – The Intro

This entry is part 1 of 5 in the series Custom RemoteFX RDS Farm

Sufficed to say budgets are still tight for schools and nothing chews through the budget more than replacing a computer room full of PCs. One alternative has always been to convert the PCs in the room to ‘fat thin clients’ with a small OS (say Windows Thin PC) and hook them up to a Terminal Server/Remote Desktop Services Farm. The biggest… Read more



Axel M80 thin client – nice for the office not so sure about the classroom

A little while ago the guys at Axel let me borrow one of their M80 thin clients to try out with Citrix VDI-in-a-Box and also Microsoft RDS (Server 2008 R2) and I’m happy to say I can easily see this as a good thin client to use in the office although I have my reservations about use in classroom. This review… Read more



What does it take to run a Citrix VDI-in-a-Box Proof of Concept?

One of the wonderful things about Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V is that any driver that was written for Windows 7 will also run in Server 2008 R2! As such its very easy to take any Window 7 compatible PC (with a processor that can do hardware assisted virtualization like the AMD A and FX series) and turn it into… Read more



Showcase your Server

One of the main aims of myworldofit.net is to share with other IT Admins simple solutions to problems they may encounter, in part of that goal I have posted up details of some of the bits of server hardware I use to keep things going (e.g. this post on my latest backup server). Through my new website showcaseyourserver.net I’m extending… Read more



Virtual Desktops on PCI-E SSD – 19 users @ 2ms response time!

This entry is part 6 of 6 in the series Virtual Desktops on PCI-E SSD

Currently our VDI setup is only used in the Library and so we very rarely max out the usage on our server, however ealier today I spotted that we had 19 of our 20 VDI clients in use, by in use thats students logged in actively engaging with their computers. I couldn’t resist checking up on the performance stats and… Read more



Microsoft Surface (Windows 8 Tablets) First Impressions

Unless you have had your head buried in the sand for the past few days you will know that Microsoft has showcased their take on Windows 8 tablet PCs. Dubbed Microsoft Surface (the big table surface has been renamed PixelSense) this new family of tablets comes in a ARM processor based version (aimed at the day to day consumer) and… Read more





Lync phone photos

Recently we have been deploying shiny new Lync phones at work. These phones mix in with the Lync software client on our staff PCs and in some cases the phones don’t even have dial pads! The Lync phones we are going to be using are- Polycom CX200 (desk tied staff) Polycom CX700 (reception) HP 4110 (common areas) HP 4120 (feature… Read more



Virtual Desktops on PCI-E SSD – Why HDD should still be involved

This entry is part 4 of 6 in the series Virtual Desktops on PCI-E SSD

One of the most interesting features of the OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2 is that in many situations you can boot a OS right off the drive (great for super fast gaming PCs). The only issue with this is not every motherboard out there will support booting right off a PCI-E SSD (OCZ do have a list here though) but also more… Read more