VDI or Making the Right Choices for Your
VDI or When it comes to applying desktop virtualization within your organization, you can take the VDI route, the route, or both to satisfy the needs of your different user groups. This e-guide, from SearchVirtualDesktop.com, can help you make the right choices for your different use cases. Understand how the strengths of VDI and RDS differ in this desktop virtualization comparison. Also, learn more about RDS in a mobile world and obtain an overview of VMware View 5.1. Remote Desktop By: Alastair Cooke For desktop virtualization in your organization, you can take the VDI route or the route -- or you could go with a combo. Microsoft (RDS), previously called Terminal, has been with us for 15 years. Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), on the other hand, is still getting its engine going in many organizations. To help you choose the right path for your environment, see how VDI and RDS stack up against one another in this desktop virtualization comparison. What's the difference? Microsoft and VDI are each suited to different scenarios. VDI has a separate virtual machine (VM) for each user and uses a desktop operating system in that VM. It puts isolation between users, so VDI is better for highly regulated or secured environments where information disclosure is a big issue. That also means you have lots of copies of Windows to keep clean and safe. Plus, you have to deal with mass VM boots and updates, which can drain VDI storage performance. Page 2 of 11
VDI or Of course, VDI environments don't have to be locked down. You can allow users full administration and local application install rights in their personal VM. However, this attaches the user to the specific VM and often means the VM cannot be updated using a single master image update. RDS, on the other hand, has users sharing a VM running a server OS. That makes Microsoft more suited to task-oriented and collaborative uses. Since there are fewer Windows instances, the storage load for updates and reboots is less. There's also less CPU and RAM overhead, so you can usually run more users per unit of hardware. RDS environments are always locked down because they're a shared resource and need to provide a uniform level of service to every user. Microsoft also provides high availability through clusters or farms of servers. That means RDS VMs are effectively disposable: You just need enough available for the users who are connected at any given moment. Since you don't need specific VMs to be constantly available, you don't need expensive shared storage and can place RDS VMs on local storage in the host. As you can see from our desktop virtualization comparison, these two technologies address very different uses. So, many organizations deploy both. Different groups of users benefit from VDI and Microsoft Remote Desktop, as they're really complimentary solutions. To make things easier, you can use the same connection broker and the same client to run both VDI and RDS. Where vendors can improve RDS support To choose your desktop virtualization path, it's important to know a little more about the major vendors. There are lots of VDI offerings out there, but here's how Citrix Systems Inc. and VMware Inc. provide VDI and RDS support: Citrix Citrix has been doing data center-based user desktops for around 20 years and hitched onto the Windows wave nice and early. In fact, what is now called RDS was originally Citrix Multi-Win. When Microsoft first released Page 3 of 11
VDI or Terminal as a special edition of Windows NT 4.0, it was Citrix developers that wrote the code, licensed to Microsoft. Citrix held onto its very efficient HDX protocol, an important part of VDI. It also has Citrix Provisioning Server, which streams the OS to a VM as it boots and enables the single image OS maintenance nirvana -- and works with both RDS and VDI environments. Citrix XenApp also works with RDS and makes it a more scalable and WAN-optimized solution. Making things easier for customers that use both RDS and VDI, Citrix provides a license that covers both XenDesktop and XenApp. I'm an old-school Citrix guy and I always used to say Citrix is very easy to do... badly. Citrix has been tarred with a lot of poor implementations, but the VDI wave allowed the company to revitalize itself. VMware VMware could do a much better job of supporting RDS in its View product. The ability to use View to broker and secure a connection to RDS has been available since version 3, but you won't often hear about that. The big restriction with View and RDS is the lack of VMware's PC-over-IP (PCoIP) protocol support. It only supports Microsoft's own Protocol. Teradici, however, recently announced that it will add PCoIP support to Session Host. I suspect the reason is that the software PCoIP rendering engine in View is quite CPU intensive, meaning two or three PCoIP users could redline an RDS server by watching YouTube videos. Now that Teradici released its PCoIP server offload card, the Apex 2800 that removes the CPU load for the PCoIP encode, I'd love to see it used to enable PCoIP from RDS. The other thing VMware could do to improve RDS support is bring its linked clone technology to RDS hosts. This would allow a single master image to be patched and maintained, and then you could use it to automatically update dozens of RDS VMs. Page 4 of 11
VDI or Keeping the caveats from this desktop virtualization comparison in mind, you can determine where VDI or RDS might solve problems you have in your business. Neither solution is right for all uses, and few organizations use only one approach. Both paths can help you cope with the potential end of the Windows desktop. By: Brien Posey As more companies begin using, it's only natural that users will want to connect to their remote desktop from a personal tablet or smartphone. However, accessing remote desktops from mobile devices can present security, supportability and other concerns in the enterprise. (RDS), a capability expanded in Windows Server 2008 R2, allows any client to run any application or operating system by separating where the desktop is used from where it runs. Although Microsoft RDS clients are available for almost every mobile operating system, administrators have to carefully consider whether it's in their best interest to allow employees to connect to virtual desktops on mobile devices. Here are a few important considerations when using Windows RDS for mobile devices: External access to Microsoft RDS First, you have to consider whether your remote desktops are externally accessible. If the virtual desktops are only accessible from inside the corporate network, then there is little reason to allow users to access Remote Desktop from their mobile devices. On the other hand, if Microsoft RDS is accessible from beyond the network perimeter, then the question is whether allowing users to access remote desktops from mobile devices poses any sort of risk to the company. Page 5 of 11
VDI or BYOD supportability The idea of allowing users to connect to corporate resources from their personal mobile devices is not new. IT pros refer to this type of connectivity as bring your own device (BYOD). One of the major disadvantages of BYOD is supportability, which becomes an important consideration for Windows RDS connections. If you allow users to connect to corporate network resources using their own device, users will expect IT admins to support both the connectivity and the mobile device. Therefore, a BYOD program can be a major pain for help desk staff, which may not be trained on all of the latest mobile OSes and devices. If you are going to allow users to connect to remote desktops via BYOD, you need to make it clear that the organization will not officially support personal devices. Such a BYOD policy may seem harsh, but it's often the only way to avoid a support nightmare if you want to use for mobile devices. Mobile device security In today's mobile world, one of the biggest problems with is that security can become a serious issue. Imagine that a user decides to install a Windows RDS client on their personal tablet. Also pretend that the user configures the client to store their password so they don't have to enter it every time they connect to the network. If that tablet gets lost or stolen, anyone could connect to the network without even having to enter a password -- and access corporate data and applications. There are ways to configure mobile devices so they adhere to your corporate security policy, but it's very difficult to enforce mobile device security on a tablet or smartphone that the company does not actually own. Many users will be resistant to the idea of having their personal devices locked down with passwords and other mobile device security mechanisms. Another security issue admins must consider is malware. Users download all manner of apps, so it's possible that a mobile device could be infested with key loggers or other types of malware. If you allow Page 6 of 11
VDI or to connect remote desktops to mobile devices, these kinds of malware could pose a direct threat to the security of your corporate data. The pro: Productivity While it is easy to dwell on the negative aspects of Windows RDS for mobile devices, it's important to remember that connecting to virtual desktops from mobile devices could also increase the user's productivity. Sure, some users may treat the connectivity as more of a status symbol or a toy than a legitimate business tool, but the majority of users will use their mobile devices to get work done during non-working hours. Let's not forget that it's the IT department's job to help users work more efficiently and to benefit the organization as a whole. Verdict on Microsoft RDS Still, it is difficult to ignore the concerns about mobile device security and supportability. My advice is to allow users to connect to virtual desktops from their mobile devices, but only by using approved RDS clients. That way, you can find an RDS client that does not store the user's passwords and that is known not to contain any malware. Just make sure to be clear in your Microsoft RDS policy. It should state that the help desk staff will configure and test the client, but will offer no further support for personal devices. By: Frank Ohlhorst With little fanfare, VMware rolled out View 5.1. The latest iteration of the VDI software is chock full of improvements, including new storage features, better integration and persona management enhancements, so perhaps some pomp and circumstance are justified. Page 7 of 11
VDI or Although there was no vsphere 5.1 support for View at first, the vendor released a patch to solve that problem. Here are some other ways VMware View 5.1 got a boost: View Storage Accelerator The View Storage Accelerator reduces storage loads and traffic using an enhanced caching method: It caches the common blocks of desktop images into local host memory. The Accelerator also works hand in hand with the VMware vsphere (version 5.0 or later) feature called "content-based read cache" (CBRC). It functions by having the host hypervisor scan the storage disk blocks to create a digest of the block contents and caching those digests in the host-based CBRC. Future reads of blocks are served directly from the in-memory cache. This VMware View 5.1 feature significantly improves virtual desktop performance, especially during boot storms or antivirus scanning storms when a large number of blocks with identical contents are read. Improved integration VMware View 5.1 also includes better integration with VMware's management products through VMware vcenter Operations Manager for View. VCenter Operations is optimized for virtual desktop deployments and provides end-to-end desktop and user monitoring. User-friendly dashboards make it simpler to identify, troubleshoot and trend potential issues. Persona management, migrations VMware View 5.1 includes improvements to View Persona Management and now supports physical desktops, making it much easier to perform Windows XP-to-Windows 7 migrations. What's more, during a physical-to-virtual migration, an administrator can first install View Persona Management on the physical desktop. When the same user accesses a virtual desktop with Persona Management enabled, user data and settings are automatically synchronized. Persona Management is also now able to support a one-time Windows XP to Windows 7 migration. Page 8 of 11
VDI or View Administrator and Active Directory Enhancements to the View Administrator include support for restrictive environments, especially those where write access to the Active Directory is prohibited. Administrators can now choose to reuse existing machine accounts in Active Directory during the provisioning process, which means you can create more secure, temporary-use systems. View Administrator also now supports larger-scale VDI deployments and has increased performance in the management console. VMware View Composer Server in View 5.1 can be installed in a standalone server, which improves performance. Plus, VMware View Connection Server now logs events in syslog rather than a database, making it easier to use with unified management products. Support: More endpoints, USB, multi-monitor The new version adds support for additional endpoints. Users will now be able to connect to their VMware View desktop from a variety of mobile and fixed endpoints with updated clients for Mac, Windows and Linux desktops; thin or zero clients; and Apple ipad, Google Android and Amazon Kindle Fire tablets. End users will also appreciate the enhanced USB support, which eliminates the need for specialized device drivers to be installed on the client device. With VMware View 5.1, a generic USB arbitrator is used on the client side, while a proper USB hub is implemented in the agent. That allows View to support a broader range of USB devices while supporting fine-grained remote device policy (for example, enable/disable mass storage file copy) even on multifunction USB devices. VMware View 5.1 Local Mode now includes support for multi-monitor implementations as well as USB-based mass storage devices, allowing a virtual desktop to perform more like a physical one in situations where that's necessary. Page 9 of 11
VDI or Protocol responsiveness With some minor rewrites to the PC over IP (PCoIP) code base and supporting software elements, protocol enhancements in VMware View 5.1 help speed up client-side responsiveness. PCoIP adapts to the end user's network connection to provide a high-quality, customized desktop experience over the LAN or WAN. Security View 5.1 comes with support for Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS), which brings security authentication support in VMware View to other two-factor authentication vendors that use a RADIUS client in the View 5.1 Connection Server. That creates a multitude of options for administrators looking to implement single sign-on or security tokens in virtual desktops. The improvements to VMware View 5.1 are meant to work in concert with other VMware technologies. It also makes it easier for admins to do large scale-outs of virtual desktops and supports the growing variety of endpoints demanded by today's end users. Page 10 of 11
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