Je suis head of le IT department at le small business I work for, however Je suis primarily a software architect et tous of mon system administration experience et knowledge is ancillary to software development. At certains point this year ou suivant we will be looking at upgrading our workstation environment to a uniform Windows 7 / Office 2010 environment as opposed to le hodge podge collection of various OEM licensed editions of software that are on chaque différent machine.
It occurred to me that it is probably possible to forgo upgrading chaque workstation et à la place have it be a dumb terminal to access a virutalization server et have leur entire virtual workstation hosted on le server.
Now Je sais basically anything is possible mais is this a feasible solution for a small business (25-50 work stations)? Assuming that this is feasible, what type of rough guidelines exist for calculating le requis server resources needed for this.
How exactly do solutions handle a user accessing leur VM, do they log on normally to leur physical workstation et alors use remote desktop to access leur VM, ou is it usually done avec a client piece of software to negotiate this?
What types of software disponible for administering et monitoring these VM's, can this functionality be achieved out of box avec Microsoft Server 2008? Je suis mostly interested in these questions relating to Server 2008 avec Hyper-V mais fell free to offer insight avec VMware's product line up, especially si il y a tout compelling reasons to choose them over Hyper-V in a Microsoft shop.
**Modification :** Just to add certains more information on implementation goals would be to upgrade our platform depuis a Win2k3 / XP environment to a full Windows 2008 / Win7 platform sans having to perform tout of that associated work avec our chaque differently configured workstation.
Also could anyone offer tout realistic guidelines for how big of hardware is needed to support 25-50 workstations virtually? The majority le workstations do nothing except Office, Outlook et web. The seulement high demand workstations are le development workstations qui would keep everything local.
Virtualisation de bureau Windows au lieu de remplacer les postes de travail
Re: Virtualisation de bureau Windows au lieu de remplacer les postes de travail
This type of solution exists in a continuum.
On one end of le spectrum you have client computers running a "thick" operating system (like Windows ou a desktop Linux distribution) et connecting via client software to hosted applications (via RemoteApp shortcuts et le Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), ou via Citrix ICA protocol).
In le middle of le spectrum you have clients connecting via these même protocols to full-blown desktop sessions (rather than a single application), mais using a shared operating system installation. Ceci est typically le world of Windows "Terminal Services".
On le far end of le spectrum you have quel est typically known as a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) où client devices are très stripped down et seulement host client software to connect to a hosted operating system instance.
All of these situations are physically feasible, mais you'd do yourself a favor to start investigating le licensing costs avant you go down le road of spec'ing servers, etc.
The licensing costs in le Microsoft world include soit Terminal Services Client Access Licenses ou Windows [Virtual Enterprise Centralized Desktop](http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/solutions/virtualization/licensing.aspx) (VECD) licenses of operating systems to contend avec for chaque device ou user accessing le VDI solution. Licensing for votre desktop application software, depending on où on le spectrum you're falling, may aussi be différent than you currently use et this necessitate additional license purchases.
C'est likely that you're going to find that le acquisition costs of a VDI infrastructure are similiar, si pas more expensive, than going down le traditional "thick client" route. Phyisically et pratically using thin-client devices sounds like a "win", mais software licensing expense has traditionally more than made up for tout hardware cost savings, qui leaves seulement "soft cost" management et TCO savings as justification.
Edit:
Ryan Bolger hit it right on le head avec his answer (and I +1'd him) avec respect to "soft cost" savings, qui you're right to identify as le place to save money.
Learning how to centrally deploy software, manage user environments, et generally maintain le hell out of votre network using Group Policy will build votre personal knowledge of le "innards" et operation of a Windows network et will have far fewer "moving parts" than a VDI infrastructure. Even si you had a VDI infrastructure, frankly, Je pense you'd encore be able to leverage immense benefits depuis Group Policy-fu.
VDI et remote application delivery is a great solution for très task-specific application, ou delivery of applications over slow ou unreliable network connections (think "shared Microsoft Access database over a T1-based WAN"). Je ne think that desktop virtualization, at least in le current incarnation as an excessive-licensing-fee-based minefield, is "the answer".
Je vais even jump out on a limb et say that, avec proper "care et feeding" maintenance of très large fleets of client computers running Windows n'est pas really tous that hard, using le built-in tools in Windows Server, WSUS, good knowledge of scripting, et an understanding of how Windows itself et votre application software works. Automating votre client computer build, removing users' Administrator rights, et getting a handle on votre OS et application update deployment infrastructure will take you leaps et bounds ahead.
On one end of le spectrum you have client computers running a "thick" operating system (like Windows ou a desktop Linux distribution) et connecting via client software to hosted applications (via RemoteApp shortcuts et le Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), ou via Citrix ICA protocol).
In le middle of le spectrum you have clients connecting via these même protocols to full-blown desktop sessions (rather than a single application), mais using a shared operating system installation. Ceci est typically le world of Windows "Terminal Services".
On le far end of le spectrum you have quel est typically known as a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) où client devices are très stripped down et seulement host client software to connect to a hosted operating system instance.
All of these situations are physically feasible, mais you'd do yourself a favor to start investigating le licensing costs avant you go down le road of spec'ing servers, etc.
The licensing costs in le Microsoft world include soit Terminal Services Client Access Licenses ou Windows [Virtual Enterprise Centralized Desktop](http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/solutions/virtualization/licensing.aspx) (VECD) licenses of operating systems to contend avec for chaque device ou user accessing le VDI solution. Licensing for votre desktop application software, depending on où on le spectrum you're falling, may aussi be différent than you currently use et this necessitate additional license purchases.
C'est likely that you're going to find that le acquisition costs of a VDI infrastructure are similiar, si pas more expensive, than going down le traditional "thick client" route. Phyisically et pratically using thin-client devices sounds like a "win", mais software licensing expense has traditionally more than made up for tout hardware cost savings, qui leaves seulement "soft cost" management et TCO savings as justification.
Edit:
Ryan Bolger hit it right on le head avec his answer (and I +1'd him) avec respect to "soft cost" savings, qui you're right to identify as le place to save money.
Learning how to centrally deploy software, manage user environments, et generally maintain le hell out of votre network using Group Policy will build votre personal knowledge of le "innards" et operation of a Windows network et will have far fewer "moving parts" than a VDI infrastructure. Even si you had a VDI infrastructure, frankly, Je pense you'd encore be able to leverage immense benefits depuis Group Policy-fu.
VDI et remote application delivery is a great solution for très task-specific application, ou delivery of applications over slow ou unreliable network connections (think "shared Microsoft Access database over a T1-based WAN"). Je ne think that desktop virtualization, at least in le current incarnation as an excessive-licensing-fee-based minefield, is "the answer".
Je vais even jump out on a limb et say that, avec proper "care et feeding" maintenance of très large fleets of client computers running Windows n'est pas really tous that hard, using le built-in tools in Windows Server, WSUS, good knowledge of scripting, et an understanding of how Windows itself et votre application software works. Automating votre client computer build, removing users' Administrator rights, et getting a handle on votre OS et application update deployment infrastructure will take you leaps et bounds ahead.