IMHO, please dispense away with the "local" hard disk concept and go
the LTSP (Linux Terminal Server Project) way.
Baskar, who has already participated in this thread, has a lot of
experience with LTSP as well as thin clients and he is located in
Greater Chennai.
1. Maintain "desktop" servers that caters to the interest of the
student body -- let them learn the software first and then get them
into the hardware aspects. Others have discussed the pros/cons
vis-a-vis the desktop choice.
2. The 'local' disks can be bunched together to create "storage"
servers and/or create on premise "cloud" storage like ownCloud.
3. Also suggest, filter out students into "developer" and "admin"
tracks based on their aptitude, the mindset required for them is
different IMO. Let those with "admin" aptitude delve into
sysadmin/netadmin and those with "developer" aptitude go into simple
application development.
4. Take the KISS (Keep It Simple and Stupid) approach and build upon that.
I am confident that we will discover a few nuggets in this initiative.
Best,
-- Arun Khan
