@JaredBusch said:

@NetworkNerd My vendor quoted me $106 for the RDS CALS for a bid I recently sent to another potential client.

Yep - that's essentially what I am seeing in terms of price.

I'm going to rely on @NetworkNerdWifey to post the pictures here as she is the master photographer in our household.

Congrats! You will be blessed beyond measure.

@JaredBusch said:

@NetworkNerd

Yes you need the normal Windows CAL and then a RDS CAL for each RDS user. Epicor charged $115 for it.

You could also get RDS Machine CAL instead. not sure on the pricing of those.

I remember Epicor trying to sell us the SQL licenses for 2014 / 2012 to use with their new ERP product, but with the runtime license (or whatever they call it), you get the full SQL but only license to use it for Epicor and nothing else. We have a few custom SQL databases in addition to the one for Epicor and had to get the full version.

But if they can do RDS CALs for cheap we will definitely check it out. My guess is that would mean your RDS server is really only licensed to run Epicor and no other applications, but I do not know.

Epicor is pretty big about trying to strong arm people into going physical. Their hardware sizing guide recommends it, even after they re-wrote their app in .NET to run faster and more efficiently. I'm running ERP 9 virtual (which we went against them on), and it runs just fine. And ERP 10 will be even leaner, so I am certainly not worried there.

That does sound pretty attractive. I think it would help those who are less tech savvy. So when users try to print from the application that is via RemoteApp, they see a list of printers on the server rather than the ones installed on their local machine, right? But as long as the proper print drivers are installed on the RDS server, users should theoretically be able to print back to a local printer with no issues.

I have the blessing of still having a Server 2003 box in place as our production terminal server. Its primary use is for those who do not office at our main site where most servers are to use to run our ERP system application (Epicor).

Not that we weren't going to get rid of this terminal server sometime soon (i.e. right around its end of life), but there is now a directive to upgrade Epicor to its latest version by Thanksgiving weekend. Actually it's been set in stone from what I was told. Well, as you know, with upgraded systems come upgraded client software. The new Epicor client won't run on Server 2003 (and I did not expect it to, really, but thought we had more time). This shiny new version of Epicor does have a web client, but I know for a fact it does not contain all the features of the full desktop client. The shortcomings of the web client for Epicor prevent it from being used as a standard for our remote site users.

We do have a Datacenter license for Server 2012 (not R2) for our ESXi box that will run the new Epicor VMs, but we do not have RDS licenses (unless they are somehow already included in our current licensing). I figure we have 3 real options here - use RDS (similar to the terminal server experience now), use RemoteApp, or try to run Epicor over VPN.

I'm in favor of RDS or RemoteApp as a standard, but I am not sure which would work better. People are used to the RDS experience now but might appreciate an experience more like what RemoteApp can deliver. In all of this, I fear I may be strong-armed into attempting to have folks run Epicor over VPN from our remote sites to avoid additional expenditures (not something I want to do...at all).

I should also add that we have about 50 remote users across 5 different sites in the DFW metroplex which are all connected back to command central (site where the servers are) via site-to-site VPN.

What I would like to know from ML folks is...

1. How do you decide whether RDS or RemoteApp will work better for your environment? What worked better for you?
2. How expensive is RDS licensing? From what I have been reading online, having the RDS CAL should cover use of RemoteApp in conjunction with Epicor.
3. What kind of bandwidth savings would you estimate getting by using RemoteApp / RDS over a local client over VPN?

Thanks for the help. If there is something else I may be missing here, please feel free to set me straight.

For about 25 years now, my family has been carving pumpkins at Halloween as a tradition started by my aunt when she brought home a Pumpkin Masters kit on that fateful day. Ever since, we have been hooked. Each year we seem to carve more pumpkins, often times with better or more difficult patterns. It's literally our favorite holiday.

I remember my aunt from Texas would come to Tennessee where we lived (until I finished college) to carve pumpkins at Halloween. She would stay for the week, often using all of her vacation time. We became "those people with all the pumpkins." Then, when we moved to Texas in 2003, we became The Pumpkin People. I got married in 2005, and my wife got involved. My sister got married a few years ago, and her husband joined in the crew. It's still a family thing.

Even though Aunt Tonie (the one who started it all) passed away back in 2006 after losing her battle with cancer, the tradition carries on each year. Now it's sort of become our way of honoring her memory because it's something she loved to do, and we all loved to do with her. And we love it when people come by the house to get some candy on Halloween to see the display.

So if you want to check out some of our designs this year, have a look:
https://www.facebook.com/pumpkinpeople
http://brandibug.blogspot.com/2014/10/halloween-2014-lets-get-started.html

@scottalanmiller said:

@NetworkNerd said:

But, let's not leave out the fact that you can watch a webinar and get a free Meraki access point for 3 years. The first taste is free until you move to get a second.

Only for a super cheap access point, though. Not their real gear, the stuff that you would want. And a Ubiquiti AP is only $65 that bests that one by a lot. The fourth year of that free access point costs more than a decade with the Ubiquiti.

I agree Ubiquiti is far superior for the money, and I did not actually realize you don't get a true taste when getting the freebie.

@scottalanmiller said:

@Nic said:

oh gotcha, didn't realize they were separate products. Yeah it seems like more of a rental setup with the Meraki, if you have to keep paying for service. Similar to what Cisco does where if you don't have a service contract then you can't update your devices with new firmware.

Yes, it is a lease where you pay an up front fee and then an annual fee. The prices that I quoted are the heavily discounted "pay up front" ones. If you pay as you go, it gets higher.

So the time value of money kills you on these too. Spending huge money today for support eight years from now.

But, let's not leave out the fact that you can watch a webinar and get a free Meraki access point for 3 years. The first taste is free until you move to get a second.

@Minion-Queen said:

Yeah I do it like once a week at least for someone. But today it's just not working.

I just got a call from Microsoft. Try going to Billing -> Subscriptions. Click on the subscription whose licenses need to be increased, and then click Change License Quantity on the far right. The link is kind of small, but it will take you to a screen where you can add licenses to the subscription you have very easily. It worked for me.

@Minion-Queen said:

Yeah I do it like once a week at least for someone. But today it's just not working.

It seems like we need to add or change something once per week as well (sometimes more often). This is the first we have noticed it.

@Dashrender said:

Try flushing your cache.

We tried that with no success and did verify we see the same thing on different computers when logging into the portal from Chrome and IE.

I put in a ticket with MS, so we will see what happens.

We're having a really strange issue this morning. For any existing O365 subscription we have, we cannot add licenses to it. As you can see we have 55 O365 ProPlus licenses. The option to add more licenses is completely gone. And the interesting part is it is gone for every subscription we have (ProPlus, Visio Pro, Project Pro). The option to purchase is only there for products to which we are not currently subscribed.

All my subscriptions show to be active. Has anyone else seen this (specifically today)?

I put in a ticket with MS for this.

Loggly does have a free version, but I think the daily limit is 200 MB. You will get an e-mail if you go over your limit.

@art_of_shred said:

There are still some of us left who know how to do math without that gizmo.

Amen to that, sir.

@NetworkNerdWifey said:

Don't show this to @NetworkNerd . He'll pull out his soapbox.

I'm already standing on it.

@scottalanmiller said:

I don't see too much case for solving hand written equations of that nature. I suspect that that will be something that they will solve in the future, that's purely just optical detection issues. But the majority of use cases must be printed ones. When someone wants to check work (or skip doing it) but as this does not show the process of finding the answers it really does not do peoples' work for them but just provides a fast way to verify the work.

It makes me wonder how many folks will try to smuggle these into standardized testing environments. Of course, that probably happens now to some extent.

That just goes to show it is extremely important when teaching problem solving to make students show the work that led to the answer(s).

I've been waiting for this one for a while. Thanks, Scott!