The PC?
The fact is the power of the PC is that the end user computing environment is on the user’s desk. The weakness of the PC is that the end user computing environment is on the user’s desk. It’s not a big deal if you have someone to build it, patch it, put updates on it, software on it, secure it, etc. Managed Support providers automate the “maintenance and monitoring” and support your solution, that’s easy for them. But most organizations have failed to do the maintenance and support of the core solution well despite the available tools out there. This lack of a good IT Partner or IT Department has driven the need for other options.
The question over time became… How does a SMB have the resources to manage all the necessary systems to function well? You’ll be ok as long as your IT Partner has the tools and processes that enable help desk staff to take care of lots of stuff and policies are created regarding security and storage locations to control data.
Why VDI now?
The idea with VDI is that instead of users using applications on a Terminal Server or their PC they run a session that connects to a virtual machine running Vista or Windows 7 on a server in the data center. The server will run many desktop virtual machines and users connect to them via a broker service. The broker deploys the VM’s on behalf of the user/administrators from a golden image.
The philosophy of VDI is to take the best of the PC and put it with the best of Terminal Services. Each user gets their own computing environment running a desktop OS. That’s a familiar computing environment for the user and pretty much most applications should be OK with that. The desktop OS is running on a server running a virtualization solution in the data center. That centralizes the user computing environment beside their server applications and data.
Sound like it’s going to reduce costs? I’m not so sure…
Why Not VDI?
Let’s dispel some myths. Most help desk calls are not PC hardware related. They’re vastly in the minority. It’s usually applications, printers, phones, Q&A stuff that keeps the phones buzzing. With PC’s, we can minimize foot traffic by using things like Active Directory Group Policy, standard Maintenance and Monitoring programs. Moving the user to a data center located virtual machine doesn’t remove these calls. In fact, the same solutions will be used to fix the issues. Heck, we’ve added further complexity such as bandwidth and the broker to break.
What about VDI being a cheaper solution? It’s not…
We went low end with the VDI sessions required and you’re looking at a cost from $70-$100/mo/user before you get to your support and application costs. So that’s $840-$1200/year which is about triple of the cost of a PC or laptop over 3 years. Oh – you’ll still need something for VDI on the end user’s desktop. I already discounted monitors from the equation. But you still need a terminal of some kind in VDI on the desktop. That could be a recycled PC. Or it could be a terminal. They also need to be managed and upgraded in some way too.
You’ve also completely centralized the user computing environment so there will be greater reliance on networking, requiring an upgrade there. By the way, this is all in the context that your applications can run in a VDI environment.
But what about all the management savings? If you need to deploy software, updates, patches, AV, etc to a PC then you need to do the same with a VM. Sure it’s centralized but you still need all those management applications to do the work. And you’re still likely to need 1 help desk admin for every 40 users to take care of all that support. Remember your Managed Support Provider should already take care of all of this “management”.
Which Way To Go?
VDI does have a place, if you can afford it, but I’d be more likely to go with a PC deployment. You still need all the same management solutions and mechanisms no matter which way you go. So I say go the way that’s cheapest, most trusted and more fault tolerant especially when you combine it with Managed IT Support services, the PC.
The basic problem is that server hardware is more expensive than PC hardware. The only potential is that the power savings would write off the hardware purchase but I doubt there’s data for that. I do know that PC’s are more efficient than ever. We can control power usage using GPO and use WOL to power them up during the night to do updates. And don’t forget there will always be a terminal on the desk (often an old, power inefficient recycled PC) for VDI.
