@Jason said:

@scottalanmiller said:

If you need gear like that on a shop floor the de facto answer is VDI. Not always the answer, but it is the place where most people would look first. Put a low cost, fanless thin client or zero client on the shop floor and put the hefty gear where it is protected like in a server closet - clear, cool area and physically secure too.

The natural reaction is VDI. But you could do just a remote desktop with a physical desktop being used - just remotely. That way you keep the gear you have, keep the model that you have, keep the approach that you have but you make everything more flexible.

Remote access could be RDP, NX, ICA, something special or even a distance KVM connection.

Or a remote dell precision rack mount computer. What are they doing engineering stuff on the shop floor anyway? That's odd. Usually you finalize that stuff for approval and then just feed it into the machines.

Yes I know its strange. We are a precision machine shop. We are pretty unique in that we are doing tolerances less than .0005”. Sometimes this means making changes on the fly to account for various issues that arise in the machining process. 90% of the stuff is done in engineering. But one of the engineers is also the owner who wants to be able to be at just about any machine and be able to make these changes without it being slow.

@scottalanmiller said:

Just racking your existing desktops into the server closet and getting thin clients onto the desks now would be a way to fix things immediately while getting people used to the way that things work so that you have a fix now while getting ready for VDI someday.

Wish I had space for that right now, I am working on installing a relay rack in my server room and its a bit in shambles right now. Good idea though. I will most likely explore that a bit more when I am done with my current project.

Just for fun, here is some of my what I have done!

I like the VDI idea and I fully plan on pushing that, however, my current push if 1st for server virtualization which is something that will be happening next year. After I get that all figured out, I do really want to look into vdi, I think it would be a perfect fit for us. But we are not there quite yet.

I think I am going to look into something like nic posted for now. I have been lucky that the environment has not taken out any expensive parts yet. I know this will change.....so I want to remedy the problem until I can come up with a REAL solution.

@scottalanmiller said:

@bbiAngie said:

No its not needed, however, there is no going back at this point. We took this route so if any of our "main" computers go down, we can pull a computer from just about anywhere and it will work, even in engineering where they are using programs like solidworks and catia.

Well you need to go back now, right? Because this isn't working? The machines from the shop floor aren't surviving and aren't really useful as CAD workstations, right? The extra cost here must be staggering - even going forward.

Go to management and propose saving them money, a lot of money right now. It would be far, far cheaper to have a spare on a shelf for the CAD people or spare parts rather then having their spares get destroyed on the shop floor.

Anything with an i7 is going to have to put a lot of air to stay cool. Lots of air means dust and oil and damage. And a GPU makes that so dramatically worse.

You want fanless, low power machines that cost a fraction the acquisition cost, don't need to push air through the chassis and will save a ton of money on power consumption too.

This is the time where you need to go back to management and change the plan. A miscalculation was made but you can course correct right now and make things better.

You make some excellent points. There are however computers on the shop floor that do NEED to be beefy. Some of our operators also do programming. This means that I still need to have at least a couple computers in each area that are capable of running 3d cad/cam software. Now i7's are probably overkill but the quadro cards that are in these pc's are also necessary...... I have yet to fry any processors, the cost has mostly been in replacing cpu fans/time.

Yea, I get all that, this is why I am trying to fix the problem.

No its not needed, however, there is no going back at this point. We took this route so if any of our "main" computers go down, we can pull a computer from just about anywhere and it will work, even in engineering where they are using programs like solidworks and catia.

So the problem is that we have gone with a pretty beefy "standard" build. Most of my computers are i7 with 16gb of ram. We already have these deployed so replacing them with something slower would not go over well.

So I have run into a slight issue. I work in a manufacturing shop where we use oils and other lubricants to cut metal and plastic. This is reeking havoc on my computers. I have been seeing cpu fans completely fall off the motherboard from the oils settling on the clips and essentially eating them away. This is also an issue with our graphics cards. I have had to replace quite a few due to fans breaking (from the crap in the air!) When we open the pc's on the shop floor, often everything is covered in a film of grime (oil, metal shavings, dust, etc). I need a way to keep this stuff out. Right now I need ideas to throw as many out there as make sense. I have thought about going with a more enclosed setup but I have no idea where to begin looking. I know they make dust covers, but I am unsure as to how those would stand up to the oily stuff that floats in the air here.

It works just fine for me.

Yes, Thank you all for the help. The confirmation that it was "really that easy" was exactly what I needed!

Pretty sure it is all working. I need to fix a few DNS settings but that's related to the hardware firewall. Other than that it seems to be working/replicating.

@StrongBad That is an epic idea.....

I wish I could drink more coffee. It makes me get way to hot. I prefer my Monster energy drink.

I am getting it during the DNS options while doing the Promo

@Jason Is that most likely since one already exists? Should I just click through the error and do all the dns stuff after?

A delegation for the DNS server cannot be created because the authoritative parent zone cannot be found or it does not run in Windows NS server. If you are integrating with an existing DNS infrastructure, you should manually create a delegation to this DNS server in the parent zone to ensure reliable name resolution from outside the domain "domain.name.". Otherwise, no action is required.

Translation?

Cool, like I said, it just seemed way to easy to be correct. Glad made sure before!

Based on what you all say, all I really need to do is promote it to a DC, then point it back to my current "primary," let it do its thing then I should be done. (besides re-pointing DNS)

@Dashrender Both my current DC's are getting backed up nightly. Only reason I question is because if there is any chance this will bring down the "primary" DC, I need to wait to do it.

If I don't plan on decommissioning anything right away, there is not much of a need for backups is there? Nothing I am about to do will affect production at all will it? (if it slows slightly during replication, that is fine.)