New deployment TS or local client

diegolrz

Hi, we are a small company (7 users) that will be getting Dynamics NAV 2013 within the next couple of weeks. The vendor is suggesting we go the Terminal Server route for ease of support but we are not too sure of the benefits in a small office scenario.

All our workstations were replaced this year with Intel i3 processors running on SSDs and 8GB Ram, also the network is gigabit now.

If we go the TS route we will be using an old server that we have lying around with a Xeon X3220 CPU 2.4 Ghz and 16GB RAM. We are not sure if that server will be enough for 7 users?

Our main concern is the cost of setting up the TS plus all the licenses we will be needing to get that server back up (server 2012, TS licenses, excel for working with some reports, etc) whereas if we go the local client installation we already have all the software we need.

Anyways I am open to hear your thoughts on what is the best in terms of performance, security, etc. If you need more information please ask and I will do my best to answer.

Thanks!

bbrown

IMHO - I would just install NAV on each workstation and forget the TS idea. I see know real advantage versus cost benefit with such a small number of users. I have had clients go this TS route, but it has generally been much larger sites where users are spread over multiple buildings.

Miklos_Hollender

Hi diegolrz, bbrown

Do you want to buy Excel for RDP in order to be able e.g. run reports that use Excel Buffer, or export lists to Excel, or PowerPivot for around €2000, besides the local Excels you already bought?

Because they have to be installed on the same machine as the client.

I am struggling with this problem now, if your partner said any suggestions about that please share!

Miklos_Hollender

@bbrown well for example in my case the advantage would be: IT team is in one country (host NAV and RDP server there), users in another. So if they have their server there the IT team cannot access it physically and thus is harder to do some jobs.

David_Singleton

Miklos Hollender wrote:

@bbrown well for example in my case the advantage would be: IT team is in one country (host NAV and RDP server there), users in another. So if they have their server there the IT team cannot access it physically and thus is harder to do some jobs.

There are so many options these days for remote support, that makes your argument invalid. Ten years ago I might have sort of agreed, but not this century.