VDI-In-A-Box - Experiences and Costs

[BKGarry]

To All,

I have purchased a new server, which I initially intended to be part of a VMware style "server cloud" infrastructure, but now my plans have changed (as they do). Now time for a little bit of background history.

For the past 3 years we have been promoting (due to having to try to save money on devices) a BYOD scheme with our 6th form. While this is working, and we have around 30 to 40 students doing this, we have the same old issue of software versions and licensing when it comes to items like 2D Design, Circuit wizard, flowol etc etc. Although, we are using our VLE (Fronter) effectively to allow the all to collect and send in work.

I am now looking for a nice long term and scalable solution to allow our programs to run on BYOD clients, which has lead me to VDI-In-A-Box, although it looks like it will do what we want, I cannot seem to find any real world experiences of it being deployed fully and whether it is worth the licensing cost (which I still haven't fully found yet and is out to tender)

Does anyone out there have experience of VDI-in-a-box or is using it, i would like to know your views and the quirks you have come accross (as everything has quirks).

Thank you All
BKGarry

[glennda]

Havn't used VDI in a box but i have used VMware View (now VMware Horizon View).

Also Xen Desktop is now supported on VMware ESXI if you have VMware ESXI enviroment already.

[nadeem]

Read this thread

Citrix VDI in a box demo day

[twin--turbo]

I can't directly tell you about VDI-IAB but we use full blown Citrix VDI and it can be overly complex at times which VDI-IAB neeatly addresses for smaller scale installs, I do intend to look at it for my own personal curiosity but at the moment we are building a new XenDesktop 5.6 Testbed with the view to going live replacing XD4 in the summer.

We use XD to host our fledgling BYOD, the students connect via a heavily secured captive portal that only lets them connect to a VDI desktop, they get exactly and only what they would with one of our own devices, because of this take up is slow, but we have to protect our investment for everyone.

If you need a partner then I can highly recommend Novus for Citrix and Vmware. They are excellent.

Rob