Using server for general computing

[collegecomputing]

Will this work?

The overall goal is I want to get a cheap, powerful computer/server (large, bulky) that I connect to from a couple not-so-powerful, portable laptops. The idea would be to access the servers computing power and essentially run everything on the server. The laptop would basically just act as a display, sort of like share my screen except that multiple laptops could access and use the servers computing power simultaneously.

Basically, think, two roommates in college wanting fast, portable computers without paying much money. We each buy a cheap laptop and pool our resources to get a big bulky, cheap, powerful, desktop computer to use as a server that we keep in the dorm. Then we can access the servers computing power from our laptops over wifi.

Would a Mac Pro work as the server using Mac OSX Lion Server? How would I set it up or at least what is this sort of server use called, if it is common?

Thanks for your help!

 

[OneMoar]

uh short answer NO
long one: maby but its going to require a tonne of work and probly won't do what you want it to .....( no gaming no HD video)
you can do virtual machines with remote displays but its going to be laggy as hell for anything other then basic surfing ... which the laptops would handle on there own just fine ...
and if you are thinking of trying todo that over wifi
FORGET about it

 

[Easy Rhino]

Actually you can do this quite easily if you have a Windows Server license that allows for it and a good Internet connection. At work I use a crappy P4 desktop as a terminal to log in to a very powerful virtual machine. A bunch of us on my team do and it works very well. You will need to setup Active Directory and Domain Services for authentication to the server but that it pretty easy. You are going to want at least an i7 quad core with 8 gigs of ram and a steady 1 gig connection for LAN. A nice 15-20mbps connection for WAN will do well too for writing up documents and web surfing. You won't be able to do ANY gaming mind you. Of course, none of this seems worth it since your portable devices can do all that just fine.

 

[Deleted member 3]

It's called a terminal server. Not sure where Easy Rhino gets his numbers though, you don't need a heavy machine for standard desktop stuff, not even when running 10 sessions. Having enough RAM is a good idea though.
You require something like RemoteFX if you want to do graphically intense tasks. But It's hardly worth it.


FYI, I'm writing this from a virtual machine at home ctronolled via RDP. Performance is fine as long as I don't try to doing anything graphically. I disabled flash for instance. When connecting to this machine from home, these things work well.

Long story short, yes, it can all be done.

 

[brandonwh64]

Either RDP or VNC is what you would have to use and there could be NO gaming on it unless its web based flash HAHA. Only software I have seen that outputs good frames in Catia, Autocad, vericut is HP's RGS software but its not cheap. 12 licenses was around 14K USD

 

[NdMk2o1o]

As mentioned you need a Windows server license, FYI you can have 2 concurrent RDS (remote desktop services or terminal services as previously known) connections on a standard server license without the need to purchase TS CALS, any more than 2 and you need a CAL for each extra user.

Over LAN you should be able to watch SD flash etc without much hassle, if you use RemoteFX over LAN with only 2 users you should have sufficient bandwidth to be able to watch some HD content though forget gaming completely as this won't happen and over the WAN you can forget doing anything remotely (see what I did there?) graphical as it will run like a dog regardless of if you are using RemoteFX or not as it is primarily a LAN solution anyway and won't really help here.

 

[Deleted member 3]

orget gaming completely as this won't happen and over the WAN

Since companies like Onlive can stream games in quite high quality I wouldn't rule out gaming completely. Perhaps there are some applications available to host your own server in a similar way. I don't know of any though.


Also, multiple RDP clients is also possible on desktop editions of Windows via 3rd party solutions.

 

[OneMoar]

I should restate my earlyer post
for running a terminal server to-do processing tasks yes .... absolutely yes
as for setting it up for gaming/websurfing/video playback lolNO
there is some decent display over ip software out there but all in all it would be a waste of time and money

 

[collegecomputing]

follow up

what about this?

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20111031205901260

Would this be likely to work for graphics intensive work like movie editing?

 

[Easy Rhino]

It's called a terminal server. Not sure where Easy Rhino gets his numbers though, you don't need a heavy machine for standard desktop stuff, not even when running 10 sessions. Having enough RAM is a good idea though.
You require something like RemoteFX if you want to do graphically intense tasks. But It's hardly worth it.


FYI, I'm writing this from a virtual machine at home ctronolled via RDP. Performance is fine as long as I don't try to doing anything graphically. I disabled flash for instance. When connecting to this machine from home, these things work well.

Long story short, yes, it can all be done.

Yea, you don't need that much horsepower if you only want todo light computing. We need fast calculations though. Obviously everyone's needs are different. But really why should the OP go through all of this when his portable devices can do these types of tasks easily. Seems like a fun project but nothing practical unless they have really old hardware.