RDC instead of Laptop?

davidlynchis

Hi,

Apologies if this is a stupid question (since I am in IT myself!). I have a number of different laptops for different clients (with ridic secure networks) and in a while I am also looking to head off travelling. I have a few applications that I have purchased on different computers as well as my Revenue cert and Bank of Ireland business banking cert on different laptops. What I was thinking of doing was setting up a VM and installing these certs and applications on a single VM and remoting into it whenever I need it wherever I am in the world. If I loose a laptop it doesnt really matter then...

I suppose first of all does this make sense? And the main question I am wondering is; what the cheapest option is to set up a VM? At first glance I think doing it on Azure would cost a fortune... but could I get a small server and Windows Server 2012 essentials and set this up at home? I have a synology DSM412+ server at home (with static IP) but it doesn't support this type of virtualistion (processor is too small).

I was thinking this option would be cheaper than a high spec laptop and would be pretty nifty. Also for very specific applications I have bought e.g. payroll and Visual studio I could chance my arm and pay for 1 user licence but have a few users logging into the same VM.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

biko

That does make sense. Perhaps Logmein installed on the home computer and the travel lappy?

Mr. Fancypants

Do you need several users using these applications at once? If so it sounds like you need a Remote Desktop Services server. The bad news is that you cant have more than 2 users connected to SBS Essentials so you would need a 2012 R2 standard licence.
If you want to run Hyper-V, you can either use the free Hyper-V version which doesnt give you any licences to install Windows servers (must be bought seperately) or you would need to buy a 2012 R2 Standard licence which gives you the rights to install a server 2012 r2 hyper-v server and 2 windows server virtual machines. SBS Essentials can not have the hyper-v role installed on it although i think it can be virtualized.

If all you want is a windows 7/8 virtual machine running that one person can remote into do to work then maybe using something like VMware Workstation/Player on a decent pc may be the cheapest option. You could set up Wake On LAN on the pc so you could wake it up remotely. I'm sure there other options but it all depends on what exactly you want and what budget you have.

davidlynchis

Thanks for the replies! No 2 users would be perfect. The 2012 R2 licence would be overkill as you say for the limited amount of users I need.

Would it be cheaper to buy a PC, install VMware and have WOL enabled than to get a small server + the SBS essentials? For example would this server have the muscle to run SBS with Remote Desktop services? The total cost would be less than €1000 (licence, server and hard drive) which seems a better deal than buying a PC with logmein/teamviewer/vmware

Mr. Fancypants

The microservers would have fairly low spec processors which may be an issue depending on the workload. "It depends" is the answer i guess!

davidlynchis

Thats what I thought myself, might be too low spec. Anyone have any recommendations for a server that could handle it? Budget would be less than €1000 ideally (incl. hard drive). I would want to run a single windows 7 instance on it. No other use for the server as I already have a NAS that I back up everything to!

Thanks

vibe666

possibly a silly question, but why does it *need* to be a VM?

if you remove the simultaneous multi-user part for a minute and concentrate on just something to remotely log into to do your revenue and banking etc. then a low power solution like one of the HP microservers or a Nettop (such as an acer revo) should do plenty.

€300 will get you all you need and you can just install your OS and whatever else you want on it, then stick teamviewer on and you're done.

Ubuntu server with phpvirtualbox...

LoGiE

Hi I'm in IT operations and I've done a lot of traveling and depending where your headed connecting to a remote virtual machine may be impossible or infuriatingly due to poor internet connections.

I'd recommend buying yourself a tablet+keyboard or ultrabook and encrypting it. This may not satisfy your inner geek but it's sensible and far cheaper.

my 2c

LoGiE

davidlynchis

Hi,

Thanks.... although I wish you had said that 5 days ago! Ordered a cheap desktop (Inspiron) for €430 ex vat. from Dell. Installed logmein, enabled WOL (which is overly complex for W8) and all my apps and certs. Working fine over 3G on my phone. Hopefully wont need to access it too often (every month or two to pay my PAYE/PRSI, dont want Revenue hunting me down!), so fingers crossed i get good enough internet every so often to log in!

So far working great for me! Definitely a better option then server and VM environment. Thanks for all the advice people!!!!

BaconZombie

Are you hosting it somewhere somebody can do manual reboots and fix other issues for you which can't be done remote?

davidlynchis wrote: »

Hi,

Thanks.... although I wish you had said that 5 days ago! Ordered a cheap desktop (Inspiron) for €430 ex vat. from Dell. Installed logmein, enabled WOL (which is overly complex for W8) and all my apps and certs. Working fine over 3G on my phone. Hopefully wont need to access it too often (every month or two to pay my PAYE/PRSI, dont want Revenue hunting me down!), so fingers crossed i get good enough internet every so often to log in!

So far working great for me! Definitely a better option then server and VM environment. Thanks for all the advice people!!!!

unnameduser

Hi David,

You could consider a cloud server running windows 7.You'd probably already have a licence you could use. A cloud server for windows 7 would only cost about €40/€50 a month.

You'd get console access as well as RDP so can start / reboot as you wish from a web console.