What is virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)? - Definition from WhatIs.com. Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is the practice of hosting a desktop operating system within a virtual machine (VM) running on a centralized server. VDI is a variation on the client/server computing model, sometimes referred to as server-based computing. The term was coined by VMware Inc. By submitting your email address, you agree to receive emails regarding relevant topic offers from TechTarget and its partners. You can withdraw your consent at any time. Contact TechTarget at 275 Grove Street, Newton, MA. You also agree that your personal information may be transferred and processed in the United States, and that you have read and agree to the Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy. In the past couple of years, some large organizations have turned to VDI as an alternative to the server-based computing model used by Citrix and Microsoft Terminal Services.
What is VDI? Back to Glossary Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, or VDI, refers to the process of running a user desktop inside a virtual machine that lives on a server in the datacenter. It’s a powerful form of desktop virtualization because it enables fully personalized desktops for each user with all the security and simplicity of centralized management. VDI enables customers to streamline management and costs by consolidating and centralizing the desktops while delivering end-users mobility and the freedom to access virtual desktops anytime, from anywhere, on any device. It’s important to understand, however, that VDI is only one form of desktop virtualization.
How does Citrix help with VDI? Most companies have a broad variety of users, including task workers, power users, guest workers, contractors, and mobile employees. For simple IT organizations, XenDesktop makes VDI easy and affordable. Explore Citrix products for VDI XenApp for app virtualizationXenDesktop for desktop virtualizationGo beyond VDI. VMware ponders VDI teleporting with swipe-between-devices patent. When Windows 10 makes it to mobile devices, one of the more interesting features will be “Continuum”, a tool that will make it possible to plug a phone into a keyboard and monitor and use it as a PC.
You can already run a desktop OS on a mobile device, of course, through desktop virtualisation (VDI) software. But VDI tends to target a particular device. Which is why a pair of VMware patent applications look to be noteworthy. One, Gesture based switching of virtual desktop clients, describes a process whereby one might swipe to send a virtual desktop from a mobile device to a desktop device. The idea is to make it easy and fast to move VDI sessions between client devices, which sounds a lot like an effort to make sure that VDI sessions on mobile devices can quickly and easily be shunted to another device.
Are these patent applications a response to Continuum? VMware and Citrix will need a good mobile story to ensure VDI remains a good option. Sponsored: Are DLP and DTP still an issue? Guide To VDI: Evaluating Top Vendors. Desktop virtual infrastructure now includes new cloud-based options, with the potential for improved user experience and lower cost. Fusion PPT compared the leading vendors and their offerings. In spite of its many perceived benefits, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) has yet to fully gain traction and still remains a niche market. After well over a decade since its early introduction, VDI has faced challenges when it comes to truly duplicating the local desktop and competing on cost. The introduction of cloud-based computing models for VDI (known as desktop as a service or DaaS) now offers a combined benefit and challenge to the IT decision maker.
Whereas on-premise data center-hosted VDI represented a known model that has been tested and refined over the years, cloud-based VDI is the new kid on the block and has yet to effectively prove itself. In this guide, we take look at four of the leading VDI vendors, including their capabilities and differentiators. 1 of 6 More Insights. VDI shoot-out: Citrix XenDesktop vs. VMware View. More than 20 years ago, the desktop revolution swept across the land, ushering in a new paradigm of computing, taking processing away from a centralized host, and moving it to personal computers at the edge of the network. With VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure), as the saying goes, what's old is new again. Using virtualization, IT now has the ability to bring those distinct computing platforms back under one roof, while also providing for greater control and flexibility of user access.
This review of VDI solutions features the two heaviest of virtualization heavyweights. As in my comparison of entry-level VDI solutions (Kaviza VDI-in-a-box, NComputing vSpace, and Pano Logic's Pano Express), my goal was to see what it would take to deploy a complete VDI solution based on Citrix XenDesktop 5.5 and VMware View 5 for up to 50 users. During my evaluation, I found that conceptualizing the deployment was easy. VDI ups and downsides. Desktop Virtualization - VDI Solutions. Empower your people and IT Enable your IT professionals to protect vital content, reduce the time and cost of managing desktops, support a vast array of clients and enable user mobility.
For secure, easy-to-manage, scalable desktop virtualization, rely on Dell cloud client-computing. Only Dell offers a complete end-to-end solution of cloud and client options and software designed to work together so you can transform your data center and securely deliver any Windows® app to any user on any device. Assemble your own solution, customize with Dell Blueprints (including reference architectures and complete solutions) for VDI and cloud client-computing or let Dell experts do it all for you. Then add award-winning Wyse zero clients, thin clients and software to suit any budget, application or performance requirements.
Contact a Dell Cloud Client-Computing specialist to learn how you can achieve greater security, improved efficiency and faster implementation. What ever happened to VDI? It's a good question: What ever happened to VDI? It's a question that I think some of us have forgotten to ask over the past six or seven years. I remember a time when predictions were in the billions of dollars related to converting standard desktops to virtual ones via VMware, Citrix, and others. Funny thing is it hasn't really happened. I wrote on ZDNet, in Linux Magazine, and other places as well that VDI is too expensive, doesn't perform well, users hate it, and it's a transitional technology. My last assertion that VDI is a transitional technology is really the focus of this post. Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) dredges up a host (no pun intended) of images (again, no pun intended) where users connect to their virtual desktops via smart terminals at their desks.
That's the picture of "traditional" VDI. Traditional Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Architecture: Virtual machine hosts clustered for HA and DRS.Virtual desktop images. Web-based desktops. Special Feature Read More VDwhy? Do you really need VDI? Try desktop as a service instead. For years, IT has been looking at virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) as a more managed, consistent way to provide Windows desktops to users via local PCs or thin clients. Vendors have provided a variety of tools to alleviate the LAN and storage bottlenecks that VDI can create as all those PC sessions travel over the local network to the hosting servers in the data center. Vendors have even WAN access to VDI, so it only makes sense that eventually the idea of using VDI through a cloud service provider would arrive.
It has, in the form of desktop as a service (DaaS). DaaS provides IT the same advantages as local-network VDI -- centralized desktop control and security, centralized data control and security, and centralized backup and disaster recovery for those virtual PCs -- but also eliminates all the capital expense of an on-premises VDI deployment. Rather than buy all that equipment, you essentially rent it from the cloud provider as part of your subscription cost.