VDI – why do you need it?

VDI benefits from the user's point of view

1. Freedom: the ability to work on their personal computer from different places and not necessarily from a fixed place at their desk in the office.
2. Peace of mind: their data is protected because it sits on a server whose hardware is more reliable than that of their workstation, and because it is backed up automatically by the system administrator.
3. Fast recovery: if there are problems, you can simply return the computer to how it was yesterday or at any other point in time.
4. For developers: you can perform all kinds of destructive experiments that break the operating system without worry – you can always return to the point where everything worked.
5. Mobility: the ability to pack the personal computer into a capsule file and move it to another location – i.e. to another virtual environment.

VDI benefits from the system administrator's point of view

1. Saving money: instead of expensive workstations, install very basic computers such as thin clients or even use old computers – no processing power is needed.
2. Saving electricity: thin workstations consume up to 75% less electricity than regular workstations, and accordingly there is less need to remove the heat they generate.
3. Saving disk space: the amount of data kept for each user is only what differs from others, saving a lot of disk space.
4. Backup: the ability to back up all workstations easily from one point.
5. Resilience: the resilience of the user's data does not depend on the quality of their workstation but on the reliability of the server (which costs more but is much more reliable). So if workstations crash, you can always quickly return the computer to the last snapshot saved for it. If a server crashes, the user's capsule can be moved to another virtual server and run there.
6. Uniformity: a uniform workstation configuration across the organization.
7. Data control: all data is concentrated in one place, making it easier to protect.
8. Maintenance: you can easily return the computer of an undisciplined employee who installed all kinds of forbidden software to the organization's base configuration.
9. Servicing: there is almost no servicing of workstations. Beyond the base installation nothing changes there; everything happens on the server in a fully controlled environment.
10. Occasional computers: in places with occasional users, such as restaurants and internet cafés, you can define a base configuration the computer boots into. This way there is no need to restrict what the user may run or install – after turning the computer off and on, it always returns to the clean, safe base point.
11. Easy installations: system changes that need to be made for all users are made on the base installation, and all users get them the next time they start up.
12. Isolation: improper behavior by one user will not affect or break things for other users.
13. Reduced downtime: in the event of a hardware failure in the server or in the user's workstation.
14. Secure access: remote access to the organization's workstation environment.

VDI benefits from the finance manager's – and PR manager's – point of view

1. Significant savings on electricity and maintenance: VDI eliminates the need for expensive workstations with high CPU performance, lots of memory and large disks. This means keeping workstations in the most minimal configuration, achieving big savings both in purchasing and in electricity – both for running the workstation and in reducing cooling costs caused by the heat the workstations produce.
2. Fast ROI: VDI's return on investment period is one of the shortest in IT. This means that shortly after purchasing the system it already starts bringing money back to the organization in the form of savings, unlike the conservative method of regular workstations.
3. A greener organization: electricity savings can always be translated into the amount of greenhouse gases saved thanks to changes in the IT system. This is good for the planet and good for the organization's image as one that cares about the environment.

VDI in technical terms

The client computer can use a completely different hardware architecture from the one used by the desktop environment on the server, and the operating system can also be completely different.
Desktop virtualization uses virtual machines, allowing many subscribers on the network to keep personal desktops on a single computer in a central location or server.
The central machine can run anywhere – at home, in a business, or in the data center of a large organization.
Users, for their part, can be geographically dispersed, but must be connected to the central machine via a local network, a wide area network, or the internet.
In fact, the main activity of the user's computer is connecting remotely to the server. Beyond that, no resources are needed on the physical workstation.
The workstations running on the server have no connection between them, so if one workstation crashes or hangs, it has no effect on the activity of another.

Uses of VDI

Any use of VDI requires remote management of the workstations on the server. While a workstation is off, the user's work environment is stored in a file on the server so it consumes no resources (except the disk space it occupies).
As soon as the user connects to their workstation, their operating system is started from the central system, and then all the changes that distinguish this computer from other workstations are applied.
In large places with many servers, it is possible to decide at startup which physical server will run the workstation, taking into account the load on the organization's various physical servers at that time.
Where the system is planned in advance, you can buy one powerful computer (server) and connect a number of very basic computers (thin clients) to it, gaining all the advantages – low price as well as reliability, resilience, flexibility, etc.
The method can also suit places with many old computers that want to move to a new operating system or run new software that cannot run on old computers. All you need to do is buy one powerful server and install a VDI system on it. There is no doubt the cost will be far lower than replacing all the workstations.