Today I found an interesting web video from MokaFive’s CTO “John Whaley” on Virtual Desktop (http://www.mokafive.com/solutions/it-administrators.php).  He does a good job explaining the differences between deploying a virtual desktop on a server (such as Microsoft Hyper-V, although he didn’t call out any product) versus deploying a “master image” onto a desktop.  Again, he didn’t call out an one product, but I’m assuming he’s trying to get viewers to lean towards their “Live PC” solution.

John calls out the following Pro and Con’s for a Server based solution:

1. Pro- Management
2. Con- No offline
3. Con- Expensive
4. Con- User Experience

I can’t disagree with that list, but it obviously lacking some of the disadvantages for the other side (running the virtual machine on the desktop).

1. Con – Security: This is no different then a regular PC.  If the laptop get’s lost or stolen, how to you ensure that the data is secure or gets wiped.
2. Con – Bandwidth: Although the user isn’t getting screen refreshes across the wire like in a Server deployed Virtual Desktop solution, you still need to get your updates across the wire.  Again, no different than a typical PC, but now you could get updates for TWO pc’s.  The base OS and the VM.
3. Con – Hardware: Now that you’re going to run yet ANOTHER OS (remember the base OS) on a single machine, does that PC have the power to do it?  If not, you’ll need to purchase new hardware (there again we have more management and IT headaches) or upgrade the hardware (IT now has to touch a machine…expensive)
4. Con – Performance: The performance of the Virtual Desktop is now dependant on the underlying hardware.

To be fair here, this is the same kind of issues that you get with any Virtual Desktop solution that runs on the client’s machine.  Another good example of this is a solution from Microsoft called “Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization” (MED-V).  It leverages Microsoft Virtual PC on the client end to run the “Virtual Desktop”.  By using Microsoft Virtual PC (VPC) alone, you can deploy a Virtual Desktop to a number of machines.  But that doesn’t give you the centralized management out of the box such as MokaFive.  In order to get that level of management, you’ll need to use a combination of Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager and the Microsoft Deployment solution accelerator.  What Microsoft does with MED-V is allow the user to have multiple OS’s running on the same hardware, but the end-user only “sees” the base installed OS and the Shortcuts to the applications running on the OS “under the covers”.  To the end user, they get the best of both worlds (now I hear Hannah Montana in my head due to my daughter Sophia singing all the time….back to article).  The user still gets to use their existing applications PLUS the managed applications provided by IT.  There are a number of good reasons to go this way, you can read more about that from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/products/med-v.aspx).

The VDI solution between MokaFive and MED-V are a bit different, except that they both run on the client machine.  So now the REAL questions is, “Is it better to have a Virtual Desktop run on a Server or a Client machine?”  The answer is the favorite for all consultants, like myself.  “It Depends”.  The reason is because it depends on the end-user scenario, budget, hardware, and more.  In reality, you could do both.  By leveraging the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP), you get access to MED-V as well as “Microsoft Application Virtualization” (APP-V) which simplifies the deployment of applications across traditional PC/OS deployments to terminal servers and virtual desktops.

To close, there are a number of virtual technologies in the market place today and growing focused on Virtual Desktops and how to best handle application deployment, management of the OS, and User State.  You need to first look at your end-user scenarios and then shop around for the right technology.  From experience, I strongly suggest you also take a look at your existing Microsoft licenses.  You may find you already have much, if not all, of the licenses you’ll need in order to do what you want.

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