Diskless Network computing With Windows XP?

[JB]

Hi all, I need a little help here. I am a low level system admin, and
I just
got a huge promotion to the Sr. System Admin. Along with the promotion
came
a requirement to development and deploy a network with 44 desktops, 25
operational by October 1, 2006, with an Exchange and a file server,
backup servers for failover, and a connection to our WAN

Doesn't sound too bad, I have basic knowledge and skills, but here
are a couple of more
requirements. All workstations need to run Windows, and (the big one)
no
data may be stored outside of the vault / server room. That means I
need a
diskless network running WindowsXP pro, or I need removable hard drives
that
would require a huge amount administrative paperwork in order to track
and control.


Nothing is currently in place. I can build or buy whatever I want at
this
point, but I need to get an idea of what I'm going to need, and how
much it's
going to cost so that I can get a budget started.


Any guidance would be great! If someone could just point me to some
resource in print or on the web, I would be very grateful!


JB

 

[Guest]

You might want to employ the services of an experienced local consultant on
this. It's quite a stringent requirement, and rules-out a lot of the typical
configurations.

AFAIK, diskless booting of XP (or any recent Windows) is not a very feasible
arrangement, even if you could make it work, the sheer amount of data to
transfer would require massive LAN capacity.

One option might be to use thin clients and a terminal server. That would
at least satisfy the need to keep all data in the server-room. You'd need to
do an appraisal of whether everything you need to run can be run that way,
though.

A simpler arrangement, though, would be to redirect all data-stores (e.g. My
Documents) to server shares. This isn't entirely foolproof but would be
acceptable for all but the most stringent requirements. It's difficult to
stopa determined user from finding a way to store data on their C: drive,
but if a company policy is in-force forbidding this practice then that should
cover most eventualitites.