Virtual Desktop vs. Terminal Services

Maybe someone can help me out here. I have been installing/administering
Terminal Servers for years now, and understand them very well. I do not have
any experience with "Virtual Desktop Infrastructure" technology. I have used
Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 to install multiple OS's on a PC, so I do
understand this concept. I have a customer who is insisting that he wants a
"Virtual Desktop Infrastructure" solution for REMOTE users and NOT Terminal
Server. I do not think he fully understands the difference, much like me. I
have been doing some reading up on it but still lack the understanding I
need to confront him. Basically these remote users are going to be using the
Microsoft Office Suite, web browsing, e-mail. I cannot see where there would
be a benefit to use Virtual Desktop instead of Terminal Server. Am I missing
something here? Also, with Terminal Services we would have the option to
use a "dumb terminal" (for lack of a better term) as a client machine. Would
this be the case using Virtual Desktop Infrastructure? Any information
would help. Thanks much.

VDI combines virtualization with Remote Desktop Services (the new name for
TS) to provide a full virtual desktop. You log in and get either your own VM
or one from a pool, depending on configuration. This VM gives you the full
desktop experience running on a virtual machine as opposed to a Terminal
Service session where you are still running on a Server OS, shared with
others. Some applications won't run in an RDS session, and others behave
somewhat differently, but with VDI they're running in a native Windows
client OS, not a Windows server OS.

Running a full VDI session across a remote connection, however, seems a bit
overkill. I'd be more inclined to look at using standard PCs with key
applications running locally, and specialized ones running across
RemoteApps. But there certainly are advantages to VDI. The most obvious ones
are: isolation; the ability to share a set of VMs that always revert to
their known states between uses; and that you're running client Windows, not
server.

In the normal VDI setup, you have an RD Connection Broker (required), an RD
Virtualization Host (Hyper-V), and an RD Session Host (aka, Terminal
Server), with possibly an RD Web Host. Some of these roles can be combined.
Licensing is per device, not per user, and there are special VDI license
packs available that include licensing for management of the VDI environment
as well.

Right now, VDI is very much a "new thing", and getting some buzz. Setting it
up is a significant investment, but I think we'll see more and more of this
moving forward, and I'm actually quite excited by the prospect.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/russel




"Mark" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Maybe someone can help me out here. I have been installing/administering
> Terminal Servers for years now, and understand them very well. I do not
> have any experience with "Virtual Desktop Infrastructure" technology. I
> have used Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 to install multiple OS's on a PC,
> so I do understand this concept. I have a customer who is insisting that
> he wants a "Virtual Desktop Infrastructure" solution for REMOTE users and
> NOT Terminal Server. I do not think he fully understands the difference,
> much like me. I have been doing some reading up on it but still lack the
> understanding I need to confront him. Basically these remote users are
> going to be using the Microsoft Office Suite, web browsing, e-mail. I
> cannot see where there would be a benefit to use Virtual Desktop instead
> of Terminal Server. Am I missing something here? Also, with Terminal
> Services we would have the option to use a "dumb terminal" (for lack of a
> better term) as a client machine. Would this be the case using Virtual
> Desktop Infrastructure? Any information would help. Thanks much.