Sun's Global Desktop Released 96
aphaenogaster writes "Suns Global Desktop version 4.2 has been released and appears to be quite effective. Applications load very quickly, and is not limited to Sparc or Solaris. Applications piped to a desktop across a slow DSL line appear to work very well. Sun has also set up a test server for users to play with."
Who copied who? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Who copied who? (Score:2)
So, to be accurate, SCO innovated (gasp!)
Re:Who copied who? (Score:2)
Re:Who copied who? (Score:2)
Re:Who copied who? (Score:1)
Re:Who copied who? (Score:3, Insightful)
SUN has done it again (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder how much time it... Oh wait, their server is already down.
Re:SUN has done it again (Score:5, Funny)
Sun has also set up a test server for users to play [tinyurl.com] with."
Re:SUN has done it again (Score:1)
Probably best to check back in in a couple of days - it should be available again...
Re:SUN has done it again (Score:5, Funny)
The next server is almost ready. Subscribers can slashdot it early!
Great. (Score:2)
Re:SUN has done it again (Score:2)
I'm a mere user and... (Score:3, Interesting)
More seriously, part of my compensation package, whether my employer realizes it or not, is access to applications and a modicum of control over my PC, applications, and user experience. Take those away, and I'm less than a happy camper.
Re:I'm a mere user and... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, it cuts both ways, if you're running all your applications on one server, and that one machine goes down, you're fucked, but you only have to maintain one machine, not the multitudes of machines running your application. In the end, which setup makes the most sense de
Re:I'm a mere user and... (Score:2)
Who is this "you" that is being referred to? It certainly isn't me . I'm a "mere user." I don't have to maintain the multitudes of machines running my applications. Somebody else does
Re:I'm a mere user and... (Score:1)
Who is this "you" that is being referred to? It certainly isn't me . I'm a "mere user." I don't have to maintain the multitudes of machines running my applications. Somebody else does.
And, as a user, your main concern is whether or not the applications are available. So, it doesn't really matter whether it is you, or not, what matters is that the maintenance is easier. Also, if the apps are centralised, they are running from server class hardware, not that £299 Dell that the boss saw an offer for
Re:I'm a mere user and... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, so you trust your desktop machine with a 40GB IDE disk drive, that you admit you install applications and such onto (probably from the internet), so you've got at least 1 virus, and probably 300-400 hits on a random run of spybot... and that power supply in your system isn't redundant, and if you have a UPS it maybe lasts for 5 minutes... but you trust that more than the 2 redundant servers in the data center, with triple redundant power supplies, a RAID5 SAN, and redundant NICs, and a 6 hour UPS sitting underneath it....
See, with this system, you can get full redundancy for the whole enterprise by simply building a 2-3 machine cluster... Everything is redundant, and I guarantee you I can build a system that will smoke your little Dell as far as reliability is concerned, and I can do it for the cost of maybe 10 standard PCs...
Oh yeah, and now you can access your applications from any internet connected computer, not just your Dell that sits in your cube. Also, now your computer at your cube can be replaced by a completely silent, fanless, no moving parts thin client...
If you believe part of your compensation package is being able to make system admins life hell... well I'm glad I don't work at the same place you do. Besides the license violations your machine probably presents (I know I worked at a firm that got audited by the SBA, and you wonderful users with your "Oh, I think I'll just install this app even though the IT guys told me I couldn't" cost that company more than 750k in fines). 99% of all "computer" problems are problems with some crap software the users have installed... "But I have to have this new nifty 3d Screensaver with weather reports"... Oh it logs all my keystrokes and sends them to a server in the Ukraine, and it also attempts to automatically install this software on random PCs across the internet and that's why the network has been slow for the last week? I don't care I've gotta see this cool 3d butterfly! Or my favorite was the lady who kept installing real networks player (even though we uninstalled it almost every night from her machine) to watch real time video of birds hatching... on a 128k ISDN line that fed 100+ employees... and everyone wondered why for 2 months in the spring the internet was mysteriously slow...
Part of your compensation package is not to use the computer systems however you feel... They are provided to do a job, not watch movies or play MP3s, and they are certainly not provided to allow you to run up expenses in the IT dept. If you want that go purchase your own PC, but leave the company systems to their proper function.
Re:I'm a mere user and... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry - but something's amiss here.
You proclaim you can make a more resilient setup with centralized, network-accessible services, but you were unable to find (and permanently fix) a one-PC bandwidth problem in two months?
Now, I'm all for centralized services when it makes sense, but you haven't sold me in this case
Nothing personal, that one just jumped out at me. Maybe it was the idea of watching baby birds hatching live...
Re:I'm a mere user and... (Score:2)
Well, the OP did say he uninstalled the RealPlayer repeatedly, so I don't th
Re:I'm a mere user and... (Score:1)
i really think you should get another job, if you really are an admin, because you really arent suited to the job.
your users install crap *because you let them*.
its your fault that company got fined 750k, if you were responsible for that network.
its your fault it took 2 months to diagnose a bandwidth problem & by the sound of it, it could happen again.
99% of your problems are caused by crap your users install, because you obviously have no idea how to lock down a system.
Re:I'm a mere user and... (Score:2)
its your fault it took 2 months to diagnose a bandwidth problem & by the sound of it, it could happen again.
Well it isn't really his fault it's his bosses fault in either one of two ways:
1. For not sticking up for him when he told his boss how to secure the network to ensure they wouldn't get fined when they got audited. (I had this occur to me when I worked an IP law firm who had 4 workstation licenses and 60 workstati
Re:I'm a mere user and... (Score:1, Interesting)
Users are a huge problem to work with and half the time its not technical reasons, its political. Sure you could lock stuff completely down even under windows through group policies but when you get managers and CEOs complaining and have to start making exceptions it snowballs out of control easily, especially if you don't have somebody at the top of the food chain backing you up. When I started up at this company they didn't even have any clue how many licences they
Re:I'm a mere user and... (Score:2)
Now you know why I don't do sysadmin work in the "real" world. I earned my sysadmin spurs in the US Navy some twenty plus years back and the politics were very clear. There were no exceptions, ever. I was not going to face a court martial for anyone, even the commanding officer, and my commanding officers from then on knew that as I made it clear from the outset. Especially since they would be right up t
Re:I'm a mere user and... (Score:2)
More seriously, I think your blessed situation was probably too rare. I've only worked at two different places, but I've seen four different sysadmins face this exact problem. They wanted to lock everything down, but the upper management inclination to do whatever the heck they wanted prevented the sysadmins from being able to do their job.
At the last place, t
Re:I'm a mere user and... (Score:2)
As for the mage part, well Mom's and anthropologist and I typed all here papers. I sort of got interested in the subject and given
Re:I'm a mere user and... (Score:1)
if not & your ceo tells you to make the network as insecure as possible & not to pay any attention to the network at all, you arent a real admin, the ceo is.
any 'normal' users dont need admin rights.
Re:I'm a mere user and... (Score:3, Informative)
Also, she was about 3rd in command at the company, way above me, or even the IT manager... One word from her and we'd both be
Re:I'm a mere user and... (Score:1)
Those must be expensive PCs.
Let's say $2,000 a pop for the PC's x 10 = $20,000. An HP DL380 loaded with 36GB (small) hard drives and 4GB (also small) of RAM is around $10,000. So OK, you could s
Re:I'm a mere user and... (Score:3, Insightful)
Companies do not want every employee being a vulnerability due to malware, virus, etc. can cause chaos. This is not for you.
Re:I'm a mere user and... (Score:2)
I inherited a POS project like this a few years ago. It's a crappy idea in most some cases.
If you have say a home depot with redundant T3s then great, of course they already do this. If you have a chain of smaller stores in malls across the country with DSL connections it won't fly. The reliability isn't there.
Re:I'm a mere user and... (Score:2)
I dont pay you to be happy. Now get back to work playing with your fonts and browsing slashdot.
Re:I'm a mere user and... (Score:3, Insightful)
"is access to applications and a modicum of control over my PC, applications, and user experience."
You my friend and people like you are the reason why the CTO and myself will do our best to demo this to upper management and executives. Along with cost savings analysis (bye bye Winblows licencing hell), security analysis (bye bye Winblows security hell) and help desk analysis (bye bye wanabe Winblows poweruser hell), etc..
It's not the people who are completely new to computers that give me the hardest
Interesting, but... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Interesting, but... (Score:5, Informative)
Well, maybe if you did a little reading...
And if you're being forced to use a browser to access your server, who says that you're not on a machine with keyloggers and screen capturing?
I admit I work for Sun.
Re:Interesting, but... (Score:1)
It's incredibly painful to use, unfortunately. There are much worse protocols as well, but something like ICA, RDP, or even VNC (with extensions like those included with UltraVNC) are much better suit
Wow Its X11 (Score:1, Flamebait)
They just invented something really new that nobody else could have ever thought of
errrr...
X11 forwarding anyone?
Re:Wow Its X11 (Score:2)
There are other problems as well. Say for example I want to open Konqueror as a file manager on 3 boxes (Mine and two others) at the same time. You
Re:Wow Its X11 - remoted X11 has limitations (Score:3, Insightful)
Then introduce periodic link failures that make remoted X apps go "pop!"
Then constrain an entire office down to a few mbps of shared WAN bandwidth
Then introduce IP phones that suck up all the "extra" bandwidth.
Re:Wow Its X11 (Score:2)
They just invented something really new that nobody else could have ever thought of ...errrr... X11 forwarding anyone?
Swooosh! That was the sound of this technology's purpose whizzing over your head. X11 is great, but has scaling issues and is limited to X11 applications and clients that have X11 support. This is supposedly more scalable, with better bandwidth usage. It has a client for most every OS you want to use, including Windows and OS X. It includes authentication and monitoring tools using LDAP,
First question..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Can this kind of application of an OS/System work. Heck Yes! It works and it's needed. However it will always fail as long as they keep trying to put all the eggs in one software basket so to speak. Stop with "one box that does it all. Get into the idea of, "this box does this, that box does that, and you can see it all from that box over there."
We need to move from the application having access to the OS, to the OS having access to the application. Once OS/data/application are void of their death grip on each other some really amazing things can begin to happen.
Re:First question..... (Score:2)
Of course it works. I'm a Sun diehard and I've been using the Global Desktop since version 1.0. It was a bit rough then because I was, downloading files to run on my computer, and that was new, but they made 2.0 better. 2.0 added completed downloads of files. Then 3.0, and now 4.2, I'm ecstatic.
No, wait. I was using NFS, scp, and http downloads. Not Sun's Global Desktop.
Now, I'm confused. What does this give me?
Re:First question..... (Score:2)
I think there's a difference between your company's 500 employees and millions of pr0n^H^H^H^Hknowledge hungry geeks the world over hammering your machine to death.
I'd give it the benefit of the doubt until I see it fail in a real-life usage scenario, as this most certainly is not.
And now th
Re:First question..... (Score:2)
SGD isTarantella (Score:5, Informative)
Sun has actually done a good job of fixing a lot of java bugs since they acquired Tarantella.
For those of you who don't know about how SGD/Tarantella work, it's a session server/screen scraper combo that allow you to have access to Windows and Linux apps or entire desktops that can be served from arrays of application servers.
It uses a protocol called AIP that adapts to the available bandwidth and can scale down well for low bandwidth links.
The good things about SGD are:
- Transportable workspaces
- great for providing VERY LOW bandwidth links to console-based apps
- enterprise authentication
- ability to create and serve applications based on centrally managed user and application groupings
- ability to manage many different OS sessions and mix of sessions from OSes in a single login session
- pass-through printing to local printer
- ability to connect local hard drive to remote systems
- Client is trivial to install for users
- a rich html application page can be created that can serve many of the requirements for previously locally installed apps
- works very well for deployments that many many users to a few application set profiles that can load balance between arrays of application servers
The bad things about SGD are:
- it's a 3-tier architecture and if/when you overload the server or hit an OS bug and need to restart it, UNIX users lose x-sessions
- not ideal for mapping of many users to unique resources where sessions are very long lived
- some java 2d and 3d stuff takes up a lot of bandwidth
It's worth checking out. Some users prefer vnc or NX, but SGD really is an enterprise solution - not just a machine a to machine b tool for a single user.
Re:SGD isTarantella (Score:2)
They just won't give up (Score:2)
Re:They just won't give up (Score:5, Insightful)
And stating that Sun is trying to put all applications on Sun systems is a bunch of crap. The design of the product is to have a gateway to all vendors applications. So you continue to run your existing applications and connect to them from the gateway, and no it doesn't have to be Solaris http://www.sun.com/download/products.xml?id=43321
Re:They just won't give up (Score:1)
Re:They just won't give up (Score:2)
Ok dude, you now run the IT center. You have 25000 remote-enabled users with different levels of skill, patience, etc. How would you propose to support them?
A lot easier than 25000 users on stand-alone PC's scattered around the country.
You don't have to upgrade 25000 individual pc's anymore.
Second, due to the fact that the applications aren't running localy you have only a couple of machines doing all the work.
So, upgrading and fixing things is a lot easier.
There are a lot of good examples of companies who
Re:They just won't give up (Score:3, Informative)
Windows applications too? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Windows applications too? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Windows applications too? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Windows applications too? (Score:1)
Re:Windows applications too? (Score:1)
Re:Windows applications too? (Score:2)
It tunnels VNC or RDP connections, adding it's own compression to these protocols, this way you connect to the NX/SGD server on an specific port, and then it redirects your connection to the VNC/RDP server machine.
But I guess you get better performance from X11 based applications, because X can do caching of bitmaps, drawing primitives, and a lot of other smart things that VNC and RDP can't.
Name? (Score:1)
Will they name it "Warming"?
Cool, it's MCSE-ready! (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:Cool, it's MCSE-ready! (Score:2)
Page cannot be displayed? (Score:1)
Hmm, when I click on it, I get Page cannot be displayed. I guess it couldn't handle getting /.ed. I'm not incredibly surprised, nor do I find this unusual, however I find I give a lot of respect to sites that actually still run when I click on the link posted in the /. article. I don't mean that sarcastically, the word slashdotted was coined for a reason.
I'll try again tomorrow when it's done being p0wned by bored folks like myself.
Collection of blog posts... (Score:2, Informative)
Here are some archived Sun employee blog posts about SGD (aka Tarantella, aka Secure Global Desktop).
-Eric Boutilier [sun.com]
Can you say "Tarantella"? (Score:1, Redundant)
Fixed submission text... (Score:3, Funny)
"we did not size it with this load in mind" (Score:2)
Re:"we did not size it with this load in mind" (Score:2)
They could have put a list of screenshots along with the review instead of a live product, if average Joe was not meant to have access. And they could have put up a request scheme so as that an account was opened, in order to make only serious customers use the service.
The public opening of such a
Re:"we did not size it with this load in mind" (Score:2)
Sure, it does.
They might get a few more people from a report like this at yahoo or msn, but the
Re:"we did not size it with this load in mind" (Score:2)
Re:"we did not size it with this load in mind" (Score:2)
To the grandparent who said, "But its Sun!," I giggle.
Re:"we did not size it with this load in mind" (Score:2)
As I have said above, they shouldn't opt for serving Slashdot, but protect themselves from Slashdot by providing an open online review and a registration scheme for the real thing; and all that in order to protect their image.
great error msg (Score:3, Funny)
Re:aww the poor server (Score:1)
Slashdotted already... (Score:1)
I'll look at it next week, if I remember to. :)
PWNED??? (Score:1)
see what we can do if we just work together???????
Just released?? (Score:2)
Re:Just released?? (Score:2)
Re:Just released?? (Score:2)
09.28.05 Sun Secure Global Desktop Software 4.2 is now available for download
Boom (Score:2)
Probably best to check back in in a couple of days - it should be available again...
Is this Citrix by Sun? (Score:2)
BSD Community Left Out Again (Score:1)