Desktop Virtualization for very small business

[CMITGuy]

Here is my senario... I have a small business customer that uses remote employees to do accounting work off hours. Right now, I use LogMeIn.com to allow them to remote into computers in the office and run QuickBooks. The problems with this are many, but the biggest issue is that people can't use thier office computers after hours (since they are being remote controlled by others).

I was wondering if there is a cost effective way to implement VDI on one server/computer so up to 10 people could remote into that one computer running 10 virtual XP computers. Would this be cost effective, and what would the costs be? Do I need a server to run the 10 virtual machines, or could a high end PC manage a small number of virtual machines?

Obviously I am a newbie to virtualization, so please forgive my poorly worded post.

[sgrinker]

Hello

First question for you is in regard to what these users need access to specifically. By that I mean, do they need one application, two applications, suite of applications, or literally the entire desktop? Depending on the answer, you may want to look at other forms of Server Based Computing (SBC) ala Terminal Server, Citrix, Provision Networks, etc. Not to say VDI won't have benefit for your implementation, but it all depends on cost, scale, and what you need to provide to the off hours workers. Although for 10 virtual machines, you could get away with one VM host server technically. You wouldn't have any DRS available, so if that system goes does... it goes down. Of course the same would be true with any one server solution.

Regarding which solution to use, Brian Madden actually just recently wrote a pretty good article on the subject. You may want to give it a read if you haven't seen it already. http://www.brianmadden.com/content/article/Choosing-VDI-Streaming-TS-or-SBC-Focus-on-the-application...

I think the answers to a lot of the questions he lists will help to determine if VDI is the right solution for you. Hopefully this helps somewhat, but feel free to ask more questions.

Thanks

Steve

[CMITGuy]

Thanks for the thoughtful reply... that is a very good article. Here are my answers to the questions in the flowchart:

1) Application Execution Location - The main application they are using is QuickBooks. QuickBooks does not work well over a VPN so the execution location must be in the main office and NOT on remote computers.

2) Multi-user or single-user execution environment - QuickBooks Enterprise is compatible with Terminal Servers. However, I am trying to avoid the complexity and cost of setting up a terminal server. They may also run other applications like LaCerte and Microsoft Office. Since I have never worked with VDI, I have no idea if it is more cost effective or not. For the purpose of this discussion, lets assume I need a single-user execution environment (unless you convince be that is more complex and expensive).

3) App installation - I am not sure how to answer this question. I am assuming that QuickBooks running on XP would be compatible with a vitualized environment. Any virtual computer would be running Windows XP.

Again, I am interested in the least complex / least expensive solution.

[sgrinker · Accepted solution]

I think a lot of your answer is going to come from what you have available already, at least in terms of cost anyway. It will depend on your current licensing models with Microsoft, what sort of server environment you currently have, etc. This is a VERY rough outline, but...

With a TS solution you'd essentially be looking at costs for:

- Server hardware (unless you have something available)

- Licensing for Server OS

- TSCal licenses

- Possible additional TS enhancements like Citrix, Provision, etc.

With a VDI solution you'd essentially be looking at costs for:

- Server hardware (again unless you have something available)

- VMWare licensing

- Licensing for each OS of the VM desktops you would be running.

- Possibly additional disk space to store your VM desktop images.

- Possibly a broker and a server for it to run on, but I don't think it would be necessary for this scale.

Now again, those are VERY rough ballparks on related costs, and I could very well be missing something in either. Not to mention, neither of what I listed are your only two solutions, but should at least serve as a starting point.

Thanks again

Steve

[murreyaw]

If you are talking about up to ten users, VDI may be a bit more complicated and costly then just running a Windows Server 2003 TS box, and letting them RDP into it. Licensing costs of 10 XP machines versus a single Windows box plus TS licenses aside, how is your app licensed? Have multiple instance licenses already been purchased? Do they support being run on a Terminal Server? What does the utilization on the PCs that your workers are remoting into look like at peak load? I am assuming that all 10 are connected at the same time. If that is the case, you may not be able to get away with using a high end PC, and may need to get into a server based platform. VDI and TS/Citrix/etc all have their ups and downs.

[CMITGuy]

I appreciate your breakdown of the cost, but I have a question about the VDI solution. I thought that solution would elminate the need for a Server OS. I thought the VMWare software was loaded first and the XP virtual systems were installed on top of that.

[sgrinker]

Sorry... copy and paste

[CMITGuy]

Thanks for the help. This discussion helped clarify a few things for me.