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Hey folks,
I’m evaluating a V10L with WTOS 6.1 together with VMware VDM 2.0 and VI 3.5. Everything working so far, I am using a WinXP Pro SP2 and Vista Ultimate 32-bit RTM in two VDM desktops. The main aim is RDP since we are not a Citrix shop. As for the V10L it is booting with DHCP options and retrieving ini file + include ini file based on MAC for license and some preselected options.
Now I was trying to reach beyond the usual thin client functionality to reach the “The Wyse Advantage” plane. Maybe you guys can help me:
1. What good is WDM (non-Enterprise version) for WTOS devices except for listing the inventory of boxes and doing VNC remote session? I can’t find any particular use of this thing. What’s more, it requires IIS5 compat mode and if you try this on a box that hosts a friendly WSUS3 it will quietly hose the WSUS site in IIS. Like…. duh!
2. USB tunneling: Working on XP but in Vista (as the real Administrator, UAC disabled) the setup package version 1.0.16.0 claims it cannot start the service. Hence no USB tunneling in Vista. Customers looking into VDI solutions will want Vista ready stuff, no? Can’t get it to work in Vista.
3. Multimedia enhancements: Working in XP somewhat, I presume this is some directshow source filter that pipes the streaming data proxy-like to the thin client. Sadly, the oh so popular Flash videos a la youtube do not work with this scheme. Well ok, on to Vista, no accelleration there even though TCX multimedia server software 2.1.1.0 is installed and also the license key set (otherwise it would not work in XP I presume). Mediaplayer, same MPEG1 file. No USB and no video speed up in Vista.
4. Multi monitor: Working in XP somewhat again, but task bar is spanning both monitors. XP display properties shows one monitor. Wyse claims Windows XP look and feel in dual head mode but task bar is not spanning the second monitor in “native” dual head mode. Ok no problem, small issue since the Multi-display 1.2 package is installed and appears to work in as far as snapping of new windows onto primary display is concerned. I would love to have the GINA logon/logoff displays centered, too but when I say “Install service” it claims “Not support 64-bit” even though this is WinXP 32-bit. (I patched the OS version check in the binary so hang me for this but then nothing happened and I quit because I don’t feel like debugging somebody elses code in the eval phase). Over in Vista, nothing is snapping correctly again, although the release notes claim Vista is supported.
5. The V10L comes with vendor options parsing disabled. How do you guys tick this option on rollout so it will use DHCP options to figure out FTP server/user/password etc.? Without touching the box that is! Imagine rolling out 5000 boxes.
Overall I am pretty disappointed so far with Wyse but maybe I am too stupid or just had a bad day which happens to the best of us. So that’s why I wrote this all up, any hints/tips are greatly appreciated.
From a price perspective there is not much use going beyond a V10L to XPe or WinCE or even a Linux model, after all it is supposed to be a thin client working in banks, call centers etc. Fat thin clients only bring other management headaches with them in my view. All the non-working extensions make the V10L overpriced compared to the competition which does not have “TCX like” features but are less expensive.
Again, thanks for *any* input and have a nice weekend.
MT
Hi Mark,
Thanks quite a post! So why do I like WTOS on V10L?
– Its simple to deploy
Simple in that I can do some basic networking and the device finds the connection broker and you are away. This is achieved via a DHCP option tag that points to a FTP/HTTP server to pull down a configuration file.– Easy to manage
Its painful having to convince an enterprise to deploy a new management tool to mange thin clients. WTOS is like a light bulb, its boots and connects or replace it. If you need some basic inventory you can use SNMP or WDM but there is not much to manage as the configuration comes for the broker interface.– Easy to update
Small OS foot print that makes upgrades trivial– Secure
Unix based closed source code (no, its not another generic Linux offering). Small foot print = low attack vector– Rich experience
TCX is awesome, this product has only been out for a few months but the experience on virtual desktop is great. I can’t wait to see where is gets to in a years time.That’s my rant anyway, plug in and it boots and you are away in a few seconds with a rich experience – gold.
OK so now to your points…
1. What good is WDM (non-Enterprise version) for WTOS devices except for listing the inventory of boxes and doing VNC remote session
Enterprise is good for WTOS with terminal server or Citrix PS. For VDI its not required. Sure use the free one to inventory the devices but I love the fact you don’t need a management tool. Yes, WDM wants to “own” the IIS server when installed.
2. USB tunneling
3. Multimedia enhancements
4. Multi monitor
Vista not working on allCurrently its XP Pro that’s supported for all 3. Yes Vista and Vista 64 is on the way however most people are running XP still and Vista needs a bit more time to scale reasonably in VDI. You are correct Vista will need to be there but this is all release 1x product so the line had to be drawn some place to allow development on upcoming TCX releases.
I also found the bug with the multi monitor 1.2 with the service that moves the login screen off center, interestingly this release has been removed from the web and the old one posted. I guess Wyse found it too 🙂
5. The V10L comes with vendor options parsing disabled.
Now this one intrigues me, I have not had this as an issue. Out of the box the units will read the DHCP option tags to either point it to a broker or to a wnos.ini that has the broker details. Can you explain what your setup is as maybe it needs a tweak?
Now I know I have talked up the V10L but I really like this OS for VDI, if you had posted this question in a different topic in the forums (like CE) I would have said “wrong OS”. One year ago no one really got VDI and now I can plug my Blackberry into a thin client and watch .WMV’s on a non-windows thin client. Imagine where we will be next year!
Cheers,
-TTHi Mark,
I love the fact that a guy in Germany and Australia can have this kind of discussion, ahh the small world of the Internet…
I think we are about on the same page as far as testing and functionality. The multi media does only support MPEG1 – 4, apparently the flash support will include Adobe Active Script which will allow acceleration of interactive flash not just a one way stream of .swf (et al YouTube). That should be good if it works.
The multi display 1.2 obviously had something going on, I did not notice the “Vista Support” in the release notes. I would say the developers didn’t either 🙂 Lets see if 1.3 pops out with the “winlogon” bug removed and Vista support.
I see the issue being that you use the vendor option tag like this:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/240247/en-us
To be honest I have not set them up that way before. I create a 161 and 162 tag for the DHCP scope and but everything else in there is in the WNOS.INI. The main one for VDM is VDIbroker=http://myvdmserver.domain.
Generally I just use anonymous for the ftp server or I point the 161 tag to an existing IIS server rather than FTP and this works well. Its a lot less trouble than setting six different option tags. If you want to use https for the wnos.ini or the broker you will need the root certificate loaded first.
Does this setup work for you? Do you specifically need to use the DHCP vendor ID?
Cheers,
-TTOk I think I know what is going on with DHCP, I was mislead by the MS KB article. I will try setting the options into the Default Option Class and do away with my own vendor class alltogether.
As for Wyse and Vista I will keep an eye on their download page for a little while. Our evaluation will most likely be finished in April or May 2008 so I hope they have something useable for Vista by then…
Thanks for all the insight!
MT
Another issue:
Suppose there are data centers all over the planet and some offices have relatively good connection to the broker (e.g. 100 MBit/s) while other remote branches have only got small DSL uplinks, even down to 1024/128 kbit/s.
What I would like to do is is turn off all bandwidth guzzling terminal server settings like desktop background, font smoothing, shadows, etc. The MS mstsc.exe utility can control all this in properties so I assume a V10L could do the same.
Question is… how? GPO on the VMs? A connect setting in wnos.ini (did shoot myself in the foot with this already, G-key reset to the rescue)?
Hi Mark,
Currently the VMware VDM is not that granular compared to other brokers such as Provision VAS or LeoStream. The simplest option is to point the remote sites to a dedicated VDM broker (you can have more than one) and then customise the settings from there.
You can set up different DHCP 162 tags if you want to have unique settings for the V10L such as timezone however you do want to avoid managing too many text files. Also the WNOS.INI are global commands and for what you want is to modify the user connect string which the broker hands out.
The VDM does not have a GUI for this (yet) but it is possible to modify the java class files inside the VDM. If you are interested in doing this let me know and I will post how.
Cheers,
-TTI’m very interested in those VDM mods!
Just spent like 2 or 3 hours browsing web sites and Wyse manuals about RDP optimization. Looks like not many people have thought about this. Which is not very astonishing considering most remote terminal services were probably ICA/Citrix up until now.
Someone on VMware.com VDM forum suggested there is an “open API specification” for the VDI broker interface. Well, couldn’t find it. Tried “rdp_no_animation” in Google and with two hits it dawned on me that I was up a blind alley.
I have looked at Provision Networks VAS and LeoStream (briefly) and both look like monstrous applications on their own. Adding those on top of the VDI concept and its own learning curve would be a little like handing the Wright brothers the keys to a 747, right after their first flight. Because of this I figured it would be more wise to settle for a nearly idiot proof VDM as desktop broker for the very first of projects.
You know I’d hope Wyse is compensating you for all the brilliant answers you have given here. That alone has kept my main focus for the thin clients selection with Wyse still, despite the trouble I have run in.
Thanks!
MTHi Mark,
I actually posted a connection broker review a few weeks back but decided to pull it until the all the products I reviewed were released. Now VDM is released I may look at posting this review again. I think you would find the comments interesting on different brokers.
VMware has a paper on optimizing performance of RDP however you have to use GP or some other way to achieve this. The VDM is not that granular at this stage however expect big changes to this release one product.
I will see if I have a chance tonight to do a write up on modifying the .class files and post it as a story. This site is something I do for fun so I am glad you have found it useful!
Cheers,
-TTConnection brokers are real useful i find. Being able to set the privilege level to None in the wnos.ini and still have a connection to the VDI is great for security purposes and connection monitoring. i have been playing around with VMware’s beta 2 version of the broker. Not too bad. Hopefully the full release has more options tweaks. Well worth looking into.
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