My small business client has 6 users, needs a server with Exchange and wants to have thin clients instead of PCs. Apart from the Internet and a simple application that runs on the server they need to use Word, Excel and Outlook. That's it.
I was thinking about getting a powerful physical server (Dell server, 2 x Intel Xeon, quad or more cores, lots of RAM - I was thinking 4GB per PC and 8GB per server, fast hard drives, possibly SSD based solution), NAS and thin clients.
I don't have experience with hyper-v, so I wanted to get vmware essentials and install 2 VMs, however if hyper-v would end up being better solution I would not mind learning how to use it:
- SBS 2011 Standard
- Windows 2008 R2 for RDS
Then I wanted to get thin clients and connect them to SBS 2011 via RDS this way creating something a la VDI environment.
My questions are:
1) what is the best way to license this setup? (windows servers, cals, ms office). I know nothing about SA or SPLA, etc but if anyone could explain to me the simplest and most cost-efficient way to license this set up I would be really grateful
2) what and how many licenses I would need depending on the way this setup is licensed (I hope this question makes sense)?
3) could I use Windows 2012 instead of Windows 2008 R2 and if yes what implications of this decision I can expect?
End users will be using their "virtual" desktops only locally, they might want to use their Exchange accounts via their mobile phones.
Ideally my client would like to pay monthly and I was thinking about SPLA (which I don't fully understand, also as far as I know there are some complex implications of using SPLA for Windows desktop OS plus extra costs for VDA - which is an annual fee and all this makes it too complex and too expensive for a client that size) but maybe SA or whatever else would be better (I could potentially pay for software upfront and then simply charge my clients some monthly fee). I really don't know - I just need something simple enough and affordable for this size of client. Is it at all possible?
There is another complication - this client has another branch office which at the moment is a separate entity but ideally I would like to combine the two.
Any suggestions and recommendations or even sarcastic comments are highly appreciated.
Many thanks,
Jay
