Very cool, will have to toy around with this.

Yep, implemented the same, for a majority of our clients... it's quick n easy to deploy, and manage .. This, along with Thin-clients, has been a winning combo for us .. . works like a charm every time ..

Going a bit off-topic - Earlier, this year , we were contacted by a vendor, pushing these really really dirt cheap China-made thin-clients (They go by the name Thnder-X) ... So, for $18 a pop (only if you buy a minimum of 50 Units), it offers : -

Arm Cortex 1.8ghz CPU
1GB RAM
512MB on-board Flash
100/1000 Network Port
3 USB ports (2xUSB 2.0, 1x USB 3)
1 HDMI Port + 1 VGA Port support upto 1920x1080 / 32 bit colour depth / Dual Display
Audio Port.
7.5W Power consumption
Windows CE

We were rather skeptical at first, so the vendor gave us a unit to demo ... We're using it on a daily basis for around a month.. Worked well for most basic office tasks (Documents, Spreadsheets, Emails, Browsing, Accounting etc) ... Videos didn't do too well, but still, not as bad as we were expecting ..

The only catch is that it comes with a 6 month replacement warranty...

We bought around 10 units, and gifted 4 to a client ... at $18/unit, I don't mind gifting these to 20 MangoLassi users ... you pay for your own shipping ... hehehe

Anyway, the client has been using these in a production environment (on the above setup), for over 6 months, and they've been pretty happy with it, so far ..

@scottalanmiller said in Has Anyone Played with KVM-VDI?:

@Seitan said in Has Anyone Played with KVM-VDI?:

@dafyre yes, you can create regular machines - they are called "simple machines". But still KVM-VDI is more vdi oriented.

Since the KVM market lacks a good, solid, standard GUI management option like XenServer has in XenOrchestra, that might be a spot that KVM-VDI makes more sense than you might think at first glance.

That is why I was asking. I've got WebVirtmgr on my hosted system and it's... okay. It does the job, at least.

@davedemlow said in Hyperconvergence & VDI:

@dafyre currently we do not ... but as above, things can change based on customer demand, technology changes, etc.

Awe man. What if we want to run CAD desktops on a scale cluster..........
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I solemnly swear that games WOULD be played on such a system.

@Grey said in Firefox continually crashing out in VDI:

I installed Firefox Portable and removed standard FireFox. Something between v32 and v42 changed the way that profiles are handled and they can't deal with data that's copied/imaged in the way that Personas/View handles %appdata%.

Odd. I haven't run into this yet, I'd knock on wood, but it's all fake plastic around me right now.

If you guys were not able to attend, we have the recording available: https://scalecomputingevents.webex.com/scalecomputingevents/lsr.php?RCID=dddd587896fdd12a664fb882e0f68650

@Dashrender The app doesn't have ads 🙂

It's still full VDI. VDI existed long before the modern concept of VDI specific tools. This is all that VDI used to be.

I've worked with multiple companies that had the opposite issue, all of their equipment control software ran on Solaris on Sparc only. So they had to maintain proprietary hardware and Solaris for everything.

@DustinB3403 said:

OK Chris Up Vote this if it's right. 🙂

If the user of the Windows VM is at the hardware device that is running the VM. Generally a type 2 hypervisor, such as VirtualBox, a retail key is acceptable. but so is SA and VDA.

If the users are remotely accessing the VM, then SA or VDA are required. (one or the other)

There are *caveats to this statement. But generally correct.
*You can license Windows VDA for a device to run the VM locally, but only if that device has a Windows 7 Pro version or better. Otherwise, yes you can use a full retail license of Windows to run locally on the device OR Windows SA.

@Dashrender said:

What is a desktop pool? or Horizon View?

VMWare's VDI infrastructure.

I had my PCOIP setting incorrect, after putting in the correct settings everything is working great.

@NetworkNerd said:

@alexntg said:

@NetworkNerd said:

I'm about to create a VM for our Estimating department to use to access a particular software. The company only wanted to get one seat, and as most know, a single seat tied to a specific computer is cheaper than network licensing most of the time. Basically this VM will run Windows 7 / 8.1 and allow one user at a time to login and use the program via RDP. We don't use VDI in any way. Other than the fact that this will be a VM, it is literally no different than having a desktop computer that is always online.

My CDW rep is telling me I need a license of Windows 8.1 Enterprise rather than Pro so I can leverage the VDA usage rights. I thought I just needed a license of 8.1 Pro (open license, not retail) to cover the requirements here. Can someone straighten this out for me?

Correct. You'll either need to pick up a VDA license (recurring annual) for the desktop VM instance or put the computers that will be accessing it under SA (recurring annual), which would also grant them Windows 8 Enterprise. Otherwise, running a Windows desktop OS in a virtual environment would be out of licensing compliance.

And if I get a VDA license for the VM, does that then entitle me to a full install of Windows 7 / 8 / 8..1 on that VM even though through open licensing I am being sold an upgrade license? Or must I have a fully-licensed underlying desktop OS from which I am "upgrading"?

The full OS. VDA is designed for use with non-qualified accessing devices such as thin clients.

@scottalanmiller Sent this to someone who I think would be interested in this.