Thin Clients over ZeroTier
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@wirestyle22 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Well the purpose of LMI is to bypass the need for a connection like ZT. Having ZT you can just go back to use RDP, ICA, NX or whatever like you used before LMI.
I mean, could I realistically run everything from a remote server and have a thin client with ZT installed just view it?
ZT is just a nice VPN. So if a thin client would have worked before, it will keep working with ZT. If the thin client worked with a VPN before, it will work with ZT. ZT doesnt really add anything new to a thin client / terminal server model. It works fine there, but I'm not picturing what you feel is the new feature here.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@wirestyle22 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Well the purpose of LMI is to bypass the need for a connection like ZT. Having ZT you can just go back to use RDP, ICA, NX or whatever like you used before LMI.
I mean, could I realistically run everything from a remote server and have a thin client with ZT installed just view it?
ZT is just a nice VPN. So if a thin client would have worked before, it will keep working with ZT. If the thin client worked with a VPN before, it will work with ZT. ZT doesnt really add anything new to a thin client / terminal server model. It works fine there, but I'm not picturing what you feel is the new feature here.
We have had no thin client before I'm just wondering with distance and everything involved if it's a reasonable alternative
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If the Thin Client doesn't support having the ZT software installed, you will have to set up a ZT gateway.
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@dafyre said:
If the Thin Client doesn't support having the ZT software installed, you will have to set up a ZT gateway.
But relying on the WAN is reasonable in this circumstance? How would I calculate it or would you just set up a test environment and see how the WAN handled it?
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@wirestyle22 said:
@dafyre said:
If the Thin Client doesn't support having the ZT software installed, you will have to set up a ZT gateway.
But relying on the WAN is reasonable in this circumstance? How would I calculate it or would you just set up a test environment and see how the WAN handled it?
Pretty much.
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@dafyre said:
@wirestyle22 said:
@dafyre said:
If the Thin Client doesn't support having the ZT software installed, you will have to set up a ZT gateway.
But relying on the WAN is reasonable in this circumstance? How would I calculate it or would you just set up a test environment and see how the WAN handled it?
Pretty much.
Appreciate the advice. Thanks!
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I think we need a real world example to really understand what you're talking about.
A thin client by itself is useless. You're lucky if it even has a browser. Most thin clients I've use have RDP, ICA and 5250 emulation clients - though I have seen a few with a browser as well.
So assuming you have a session that supports one of those things on a server in the office - then ZT would be the connection fabric to those servers... but if you don't have something in the datacenter that supports RDP/ICA/5250/etc - the thin client is useless.
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@wirestyle22 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@wirestyle22 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Well the purpose of LMI is to bypass the need for a connection like ZT. Having ZT you can just go back to use RDP, ICA, NX or whatever like you used before LMI.
I mean, could I realistically run everything from a remote server and have a thin client with ZT installed just view it?
ZT is just a nice VPN. So if a thin client would have worked before, it will keep working with ZT. If the thin client worked with a VPN before, it will work with ZT. ZT doesnt really add anything new to a thin client / terminal server model. It works fine there, but I'm not picturing what you feel is the new feature here.
We have had no thin client before I'm just wondering with distance and everything involved if it's a reasonable alternative
Why would you use ZT instead of an RD Gateway? With VPN your exposing more to the external thin client.
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@Jason said:
@wirestyle22 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@wirestyle22 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Well the purpose of LMI is to bypass the need for a connection like ZT. Having ZT you can just go back to use RDP, ICA, NX or whatever like you used before LMI.
I mean, could I realistically run everything from a remote server and have a thin client with ZT installed just view it?
ZT is just a nice VPN. So if a thin client would have worked before, it will keep working with ZT. If the thin client worked with a VPN before, it will work with ZT. ZT doesnt really add anything new to a thin client / terminal server model. It works fine there, but I'm not picturing what you feel is the new feature here.
We have had no thin client before I'm just wondering with distance and everything involved if it's a reasonable alternative
Why would you use ZT instead of an RD Gateway? With VPN your exposing more to the external thin client.
I agree here. With a thin client, RD Gateway makes more sense, especially if it is a windows based thin client.
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What terminal server are you using? What's the use case?
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Sorry for the lack of information. I'm currently researching LAN-less technology and was looking at thin clients just for funsies. We would be using ZT already and I was just wondering if thin clients would even work over the WAN. This is something I would possibly implement. We used to have them on mobile carts at the hospital I used to work at (LAN based). Bear with me here. I came in to get my cup of coffee today and someone didn't re-fill the Keurig so my life is meaningless for the next five minutes.
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Thin clients will work just fine over a WAN. Remember, a thin client is just a device that has limited functionality. As stated, normally they have RDP, ICA, a terminal emulator, and sometimes a browser.
All of those things work from a normal PC over a WAN just fine, so there is no reason that a thin client wouldn't/shouldn't work just find over a WAN as well.
Of course as someone mentioned, you probably can't get ZT (or any VPN client) to install onto a thin client - anyways, why would you want to? All of those connection options (RDP, ICA, emulator, browser) have their own built in security, and assuming you setup a secure gateway for them to connect to, there's no reason to add on the extra hassle of the VPN (actually in that case it'd be a second VPN).
These types of devices are already working on a LAN-less design as it is. The connection options all use their own security to access the services they need, they don't care about the security of the network they are connected to.
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@wirestyle22 said:
Sorry for the lack of information. I'm currently researching LAN-less technology and was looking at thin clients just for funsies. We would be using ZT already and I was just wondering if thin clients would even work over the WAN. This is something I would possibly implement. We used to have them on mobile carts at the hospital I used to work at (LAN based). Bear with me here. I came in to get my cup of coffee today and someone didn't re-fill the Keurig so my life is meaningless for the next five minutes.
Well thin clients are used over a WAN all the time. Think about any time you RDP into a remote server. Remember a WAN isn't a different technology from a LAN, the devices can't tell them apart. It's all just the same TCP/IP network to the devices.
And when you use ZT, there isn't a WAN, it's all LAN.
