Microsoft's cloudy Windows Virtual Desktop: It fills a gap, but there are plenty of annoyances Microsoft's Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD), an Azure-hosted VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure), plugs an obvious gap in the company's cloud offerings, but comes with its fair share of annoyances too, many of which came up in a recent Ask Me Anything laid on by the team. WVD went into public preview in March, six months after …
"a technology called media offload, which will improve performance, will not be in the initial release but will be a "fast-follow" feature, said the team."
So this is basically saying the product being released is incomplete? How do software companies get away with this?
So, to use WVD you need AD Connect, site-to-site VPN and a DC on Azure. Oh, and Powershell.
As usual, Microsoft has an idea and throws everything and the kitchen sink at it. It's a wonder it gets anything working at all. It's difficult to add users ? Ain't that too bad for a product that is destined to be used by many people. And everything being managed from the States, that's gonna been fun to watch given GDPR.
Microsoft : Keeping Life Complicated.
Oh well, consultants and freelancers have to be able to work, so, thanks for opportunity, I guess ?
I have been using X11 over SSH on my home machines (not even proper "server" versions of Linux) for years, and it delivers me a remote virtual desktop (that allows multimedia) without any palaver.
Can't help but feel someone is reinventing the wheel here ?
X11 is never optimised for over the WAN or remote access, RDP have evolved a long way that even on narrow and high latency will work resonably well (I have deployed RDP to users on 200-1000ms latency)
Device redirection (local drive, printers, sound) also not in X11.
if you want to compare X11... why not VNC, Teamviewer, Logmein, etc etc
"if you want to compare X11... why not VNC, Teamviewer"
Of course, comparing X11 to VNC, etc., is still apples and oranges since X11 can serve up multiple independent desktops rather than sharing an existing one.
This is, for me, the "killer app" of X11.
I have been using Remote Desktop on my home machines (not even proper 'server' versions of Windows) for years, and it delivers me a remote virtual desktop (that allows multimedia*) without any palaver.
Can't help but feel that someone is trolling here.
*multimedia in the ordinary sense of the word. I take the point that video streaming wasn't directly supported by Windows RDC, but my use of other platforms for video streaming from my home computers was exactly in proportion to my need to do so.
"Can't help but feel someone is reinventing the wheel here ?"
Nope. X11 works indeed well if you're doing basic stuff (SSH etc ...), but good luck to you the day you're using a CAD software to do designs ! This is where most VDIs are useful.
After what I've been through the past week recovering a HyperV host with four VM's that ran entire company, no redundancy, no proper backups... - all virtual bullshit can go fuck right off... I did get them running and the 50 employees are back to work, but the VM's are going away, soon. Fuck that shit - give me hardware or give me death...
Damn straight it was bad management AND design - I disagreed with it when they had a network architect design the system and they pushed me out of the project to complete it - THEN they call me in three years later to fix the damn thing when it died.
What happened here was the vendor designed it top to bottom with unnecessary complexity (VM's), isn't backwards compatible with their own software, no DR, no backups. And I had to fix it and now have to redesign it so they can cut a piece of wood without a server being up... No shit - they couldn't cut wood without the server being operational.
Yeah, it was like that.
Using virtual or cloud doesn't mean you never have to worry about DR.
Bollocks.
All virtual/cloud does is change the DR planning and service contracts you need to have in place. Or are you seriously recommending a design to your client that is irrecoverably vulnerable to a single external vendor oops (deletion, ban, outage, etc.)? Saying "SLA!" here just says your DR plan is lawyers...
The previous Azure RemoteApp that was discontinued was great - it had a full UI in the portal and it didn't require to be linked to a full AD server.
I also don't understand why they're still basing everything on VMs which is such a slow and clunky solution. Surely containers would be a much better solution. There's no technical reason why RDP couldn't work in a container - the only thing holding them back is internal politics and licensing concerns.
To get the BEST functionality from WVD look at adding Citrix on top. Fixes provisioning, performance, operating systems, etc. BUT, microsoft is requiring the management plane for WVD to be hosted from Azure only. It's why you can't use on-premise or existing delivery controllers to host it. (It is a software block, not a functionality block) It's also why VMWare is making a horizon management plane in Azure as well.
So it's like the old RDS on-premise. It is ok performance, but work with a partner to get all the good features.
From Microsoft: Let us virtualize your PCs and put them in our cloud, along with your data we already have. That way when our cloud falls down and goes boom, not only will you not be able to access your crucial files, you won't have a PC at all, so then not having access to your files won't seem so bad.
95% of "joe users" in the public realm, see "the Cloud" referenced EVERYWHERE these days, and they think it's something akin to "magic", because they don't know that all it means is that you're entrusting your data to someone else, and it's still just your data on a different server farm that oh you don't control any more like the old days and you are putting all your eggs in one basket. God forbid that basket falls down, now all your eggs get broken, and your business is simply banking on the fact that "these guys are the real experts, therefore they can't possibly screw up our "shiznit".
Yeah good luck with that.
Oh and one last note: Yeah it's FREE if you are already using O365 licenses, so no matter how many virtual PCs you need it won't cost you a dime. That is until Microsoft tricks you into putting everything in their hands and then when they have you by the short curlys, you get that "notice" of the upcoming change to our licensing and now every virtual PC will cost you X amount for one year of support, and you'll have to renew them all on a yearly basis, and funnel even more money from your institution into our institution, so we can keep inventing new ways to funnel more of your money away from you. Isn't that GREAT!
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