Your VDI adventures - good or bad, please share.

[Fruity]

Hi all.

 

It’s been suggested that we look at moving across to a VDI system, replacing some, but not all of our aging classroom PC’s. What I would like to know is what have been your experiences of introducing a hybrid (VDI/Physical) system. Has anyone started and then abandoned the project? Has VDI been promised to be the miracle cure for all IT issues and then not lived up to its expectations, or has it been installed and people wondered how they ever done without it?

 

I know it’s a bit of a marmite subject, but I’d be very grateful for you guys sharing your experiences and who knows, I might even make 25+ posts in the process.

 

Cheers all

__________

Fruity.

[tmcd35]

Not something I've ever done but something I am keenly interested in and (now) have the potential to look at myself as well. My first few thoughts are:

 

You might reduce the PC's costs but you're going to need some powerful servers in the back end to run it.

Make sure the thin clients you spec support RemoteFX.

Don't forget you need Software Assurance and MDOP to use Window Desktop in a VDI.

I've played with other similar tech - Multipoint Server - and I'd question performance on graphically intensive applications, video and flash.

You'll almost certainly still want some thick clients for music and/or video editing.

 

My money's on App-V being the "miracle cure for all IT issues" (also a part of SA+MDOP).

[CHR1S]

I once thought I had VDI, worried me, but it turned out to be just a rash..... quite an adventure!

[FN-GM]

I was involved in deploying 15,000+ of them, when i get a second i will let you know how it all went

[Achandler]

We have 10 VDI "Personal Desktops" in place hear, mainly in the offices. We used pooled ones initially but they weren't worth it, as people would be asking for different software on theirs and then you had to recreate the pool (overnight but still). however pooled takes up much less HDD space as you can imagine.

 

We also have 40 clients that go through only one RDS Session server, which are all perfectly good for basic usage, such as web browsing, office etc. They are even good for some Adobe stuff.

 

You need to make sure your infrastructure is good enough if you go down this route, we can see some differences in speed in the remote clients.

[jamesfed]

I used to go quite in depth on these kinds of posts but very quickly realised I was just repeating myself over and over!

 

Either way we've got Citrix VDI-in-a-Box here with PCI-E SSDs in the server running it to great effect, have posted most of my experiences on my blog here - VDI | my world of IT

[fiza]

I'm in the same boat - we are having someone in after half term to give us a demo and leave some 10zig thin clients behind for us to test. We are looking to kit out our sixth form with either PCs or VDI in a box with 10zig clients. It all depends on cost and capabilities of the devices. The other thing that attracts is the fact you can remotely log into a virtual desktop from home using any device (IOS/Android/PC) capable of running the citrix receiver.

[superatticman]

First you need a problem, then look into the solution. Then decide what product best fits your needs.

 

All I'm suggesting is don't go with VDI simply because you are interested in the technology or feel the need 'freshen up' your network with something different. Its certainly no 'miracle cure', even those who sell VDI solutions usually advise against putting into suites which are going to see heavy cpu and gpu usage. Ie IT or art suites. Our original plan was to put VDI in a junior school IT room and repurpose the PC's there but our experience with VDI running multimedia related programs has not been positive. So we've ordered in 24x good old fashioned base units with a decent GPU.

 

Log in times, if using 'thick clients' running desktop lock mode (redirecting you to a VDI session on login) can be frustratingly long too. You can't get away from the fact that older PC's still have to do some of the processing to initiate a VDI session.

 

It has its place and is good for suites such as libraries and 'study areas'. It also very good for remote access too. However, there are other ways of achieving what VDI can achieve, probably for less cost too.

[Axel]

I'm in the same boat - we are having someone in after half term to give us a demo and leave some 10zig thin clients behind for us to test. We are looking to kit out our sixth form with either PCs or VDI in a box with 10zig clients. It all depends on cost and capabilities of the devices. The other thing that attracts is the fact you can remotely log into a virtual desktop from home using any device (IOS/Android/PC) capable of running the citrix receiver.

 

You're quite possibly being "oversold" product by who ever is guiding you here (you mention cost being a factor) - you can do all the above with generic Microsoft, connecting to virtual machines via RemoteApp, and home-users logging in securely via Microsoft's Gateway protocol (which uses SSL, and if you need additional security you can add in client and server certificates)

 

In that scenario any device with a browser should be able to connect remotely and securely over the internet.

[superatticman]

You're quite possibly being "oversold" product by who ever is guiding you here

 

.

 

Spot on!

[Alis_Klar]

I'm coming from a Data protection remote access requirement. We want to block all removable storage in school and tell staff to login to a remote session to access school data from home. Would also set a low timeout lock for session at 5 mins or so in case of prying eyes at home. Of course policies reminding staff of secure usage is a must. Don't think we nessessarily need VDI in our case just a old fastioned terminal Services server and gateway. Would need to support up to 50 concurrent sessions from home.

 

Only apps would be

 

• SIMS
  
• Office
  
• possibly abacus iplanner (so some light flash)
  
• and general web surfing for collecting resources for lesson planning.
  

 

 

 

Might look to leverage the infrastucture later on to run windows apps on android or iOS devices (i know this complicates matters but future resistant (as opposed to future proof) is always desirable)

 

Any suggestions / gotcha's with this idea?

Edited February 28, 2013 by Alis_Klar

[Axel]

I'm coming from a Data protection remote access requirement. We want to block all removable storage in school and tell staff to login to a remote session to access school data from home. Would also set a low timeout lock for session at 5 mins or so in case of prying eyes at home. Of course policies reminding staff of secure usage is a must. Don't think we nessessarily need VDI in our case just a old fastioned terminal Services server and gateway. Would need to support up to 50 concurrent sessions from home.

 

Only apps would be

 

• SIMS
  
• Office
  
• possibly abacus iplanner (so some light flash)
  
• and general web surfing for collecting resources for lesson planning.
  

 

 

 

Might look to leverage the infrastucture later on to run windows apps on android or iOS devices (i know this complicates matters but future resistant (as opposed to future proof) is always desirable)

 

Any suggestions / gotcha's with this idea?

 

Are you looking for "server" or "client" advice (or both...)

[andyturpie]

I've always been cynical about thin client and VDI, having been bitten once before with poor performance. I would ask, do you have to deliver a uniform performance around the school due to dynamic timetabling? We have just ripped out 64 thin clients and replaced with laptops as it just wasn't cutting the mustard.

 

I keep hearing about VDI, at BETT, sales people raved on about it, spoke to some engineers who said avoid it at all costs plus I cannot believe its yet a full site solution, unless you have a server room bigger than a classroom. If its only a small proportion of a school, then I would ask why go to the bother, just replace with mid range workstations that will run everything and spend more money on virtualizing the backend.

 

That said, I am visiting a school next Friday, who have VDI implemented (as to whether its a full site deployment or not is yet to be known). - I may see it in a different light lol.

[glennda]

I've always been cynical about thin client and VDI, having been bitten once before with poor performance. I would ask, do you have to deliver a uniform performance around the school due to dynamic timetabling? We have just ripped out 64 thin clients and replaced with laptops as it just wasn't cutting the mustard.

 

I keep hearing about VDI, at BETT, sales people raved on about it, spoke to some engineers who said avoid it at all costs plus I cannot believe its yet a full site solution, unless you have a server room bigger than a classroom. If its only a small proportion of a school, then I would ask why go to the bother, just replace with mid range workstations that will run everything and spend more money on virtualizing the backend.

 

That said, I am visiting a school next Friday, who have VDI implemented (as to whether its a full site deployment or not is yet to be known). - I may see it in a different light lol.

 

I have a client who does process modelling via VDI and also one that has a Photoshop installl. Can't say they really notice a difference on the local lan. Via 3G data connection yes

 

I am in the middle of 5 different VDI rollouts of varying sizes and specing the quoting on the third (to eventually be 1000 users).

[pcstru]

I've always been cynical about thin client and VDI, having been bitten once before with poor performance.

 

I'd agree with almost all of that. Whenever I've looked at VDI, even the cost savings were highly optimistic. However, I think the idea of providing a standard school desktop to students from any device anywhere is a different issue and potentially very powerful. The problem we then run into is hugely complex and expensive licensing - particularly Microsoft.

[fiza]

You're quite possibly being "oversold" product by who ever is guiding you here (you mention cost being a factor) - you can do all the above with generic Microsoft, connecting to virtual machines via RemoteApp, and home-users logging in securely via Microsoft's Gateway protocol (which uses SSL, and if you need additional security you can add in client and server certificates)

 

In that scenario any device with a browser should be able to connect remotely and securely over the internet.

 

 

So MS RDS is another option? I have never looked at that so thank you. If its a cheaper option then we will be looking at it. We still need to kit out the 6th form and I was led to believe that thin clients were cheaper.

[andyturpie]

I'd agree with almost all of that. Whenever I've looked at VDI, even the cost savings were highly optimistic. However, I think the idea of providing a standard school desktop to students from any device anywhere is a different issue and potentially very powerful. The problem we then run into is hugely complex and expensive licensing - particularly Microsoft.

 

Its all horses for courses and everysite will be different, but companies have come in before for tendering and pulled out after I said if your system cannot handle 64 concurrent connections of Adobe CS5 per two classrooms with no lag then we don't want to know. I have to think of how much heartache the teachers here have gone through the last 3 years with the previous system. I have just now repaired teachers confidence in teaching with in these classrooms and to throw the dice again only on the possibily of doing something slightly cheaper or more "trendier" then that's quite a big gamble!

[superatticman]

Also bear in mind you will be doubling your IP addresses too when effectively using 2 NIC's to log 1 user on!

 

@pcstru I agree regarding the cost savings. Do these costings include:

 

The extra labour/cost required to 'nurse' and replace older 'thick' clients that have long fallen out of warranty? Sooner or later, those PC's are going to start failing.

 

The extra hours put in by ICT support staff to support VDI, which back end wise does seem pretty labour intensive. Some applications which work perfectly fine in a physical environment need lots of tweaking to get working in VDI.

[Axel]

You only have to follow the posts on here to see many unsatisfied VDI users...

 

By contrast you hear about very few unhappy terminal services/Citrix users...

 

Make of that what you will....!

 

VDI is very fashionable right now - and the "industry" loves selling it as it means big bucks and high consultancy fees. (No one is scared of managing a terminal server - but a new VDI installation....?)

 

I've been in the thin-client industry for 15 years - not much happened in the first 12 years (W2000, Citrix, W2003, W2008 etc) thin clients were seen as low cost, low maintenance devices for industries such as call centres and point of sale, data-entry and in many cases replacing dumb ascii VT type terminals.

 

They were never billed as PC replacement devices - rather they filled a sizeable niche under "power" PC level requirements.

 

Now it seems people are buying into all the benefits (easily done), jumping in with both feet, but not fully understanding the limitations, so end up disappointed.

 

To make the disappointment more acute, some thin clients now cost as much as PCs, use same chipset & O/S, so essentially are PCs, so contain all the problems thin clients were initially supposed to address - so its gone full circle, but now the PCs have a server in the middle...

 

Ultimately its all about setting and matching expectations, running a pilot and not believing everything you read/hear.

 

I hope this doesn't sound like a rant - it's not meant to be - I just find it annoying when resellers exaggerate thin-client's abilities and cause unnecessary negative feeling

towards what in the correct environment are very effective devices on many levels....

[andyturpie]

You only have to follow the posts on here to see many unsatisfied VDI users...

 

By contrast you hear about very few unhappy terminal services/Citrix users...

 

Make of that what you will....!

 

VDI is very fashionable right now - and the "industry" loves selling it as it means big bucks and high consultancy fees. (No one is scared of managing a terminal server - but a new VDI installation....?)

 

I've been in the thin-client industry for 15 years - not much happened in the first 12 years (W2000, Citrix, W2003, W2008 etc) thin clients were seen as low cost, low maintenance devices for industries such as call centres and point of sale, data-entry and in many cases replacing dumb ascii VT type terminals.

 

They were never billed as PC replacement devices - rather they filled a sizeable niche under "power" PC level requirements.

 

Now it seems people are buying into all the benefits (easily done), jumping in with both feet, but not fully understanding the limitations, so end up disappointed.

 

To make the disappointment more acute, some thin clients now cost as much as PCs, use same chipset & O/S, so essentially are PCs, so contain all the problems thin clients were initially supposed to address - so its gone full circle, but now the PCs have a server in the middle...

 

Ultimately its all about setting and matching expectations, running a pilot and not believing everything you read/hear.

 

I hope this doesn't sound like a rant - it's not meant to be - I just find it annoying when resellers exaggerate thin-client's abilities and cause unnecessary negative feeling

towards what in the correct environment are very effective devices on many levels....

 

Wise words indeed!

[RabbieBurns]

We are looking at VDI as being a solution to BYOD.

 

Students bring whatever device they like - ipad, macbook, wintel, etc, and are all able to use the same desktop experience.

 

Got a demo of citrix in and it seems to work pretty well with the connector and ios/android etc.

 

What other providers are there?

[Achandler]

There is a VMware version and HyperV can do it, basically the 3 usual suspects.

[DMcCoy]

Part of the problem with RDS or VDI in a Microsoft solution is always going to be office.

 

Using office via VDI/RDS on your ipad? Then that's a CAL, RDS/VDI license and an Office license you'll need to get somehow.

Use the same on your android phone, well you may be covered with user CALs for RDS/VDI with your ipad above, still need another office license though...

[RabbieBurns]

how does the CALs thing work with EES when you only license per full time employee?

[DMcCoy]

how does the CALs thing work with EES when you only license per full time employee?

 

IIRC you need to use the student options for machines that are either owned, leased to or primarily used by an individual student. OVS-ES only covered "pooled" machines - laptop trolleys etc with the standard cost.