The University of Minnesota is piloting with Citrix for a VDI solution this semester. To settle on Citrix we, set up test environments of Microsoft, VMWare, and Citrix and compared them. We ruled out Microsoft RDS due to poor Mac support so it was basically between Citrix and VMWare. Between those two we really liked how Citrix delivered a rich desktop to the user over as little as a 3G connection and better Mac support than VMWare. We are heavily invested in VMWare for our server virtualization but when we compared VMWare and Citrix side by side for our VDI infrastructure, Citrix is just more mature and extensible. It also doesn’t care what hypervisor you use, be it Microsoft, VMWare, or XenServer. Also, if you have campus agreement with Microsoft, Citrix has some educational pricing that can build on that. And no matter what you do for VDI, you’ll have to purchase the VECD license from Microsoft.
We don’t expect to see immediate cost savings, but as we extend the life of computers and replace them with thin clients our ROI looks decent. A big push for us was security and keep private data and processing off laptops as people travel around. We also are looking to provide 24/7 access to our faculty and students the all the software we can (but that all depends on licensing). Our pilot implementation, will be on the VMWare hyper-visor, with Citrix on the presentation level and streaming apps to the virtual desktops with App-V. Thanks! Joe From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Don Guyer Sent: Friday, February 05, 2010 9:59 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Virtual Desktop (VMWare) What we plan on doing is rolling out a small number of thin clients and change some of the fat-clients to boot right into the VD image, until they are replaced as well. Don Guyer Systems Engineer - Information Services Prudential, Fox & Roach/Trident Group 431 W. Lancaster Avenue Devon, PA 19333 Direct: (610) 993-3299 Fax: (610) 650-5306 [email protected] From: John Hornbuckle [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, February 05, 2010 10:55 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Virtual Desktop (VMWare) We lock our students and employees down so tight that it’s virtually (no pun intended) impossible for them to butcher the OS. But I get where you’re coming from. John Hornbuckle MIS Department Taylor County School District www.taylor.k12.fl.us From: Martin Blackstone [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, February 05, 2010 10:30 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Virtual Desktop (VMWare) That’s not necessarily true. First off you don’t have to invest in terminals off the bat. You can certainly use your existing PC’s as the terminal and replace them as you upgrade. Second and this huge in an educational environment is the central management of the computers. For example. With staff you could use a persistent image. Every time they log on they get their regular desktop. But if they blow it up or hork it, a couple of clicks and they have a “new” computer. Students, which are notorious for screwing with computers could have non-persistent desktops for labs, etc. Every time they log off, the OS is reloaded from scratch. Their data (docs, etc) remains, but they get a fresh OS. Every bit of crap they did to the PC is gone and they are brand new again. Imagine the load that takes off an already taxed K12 IT staff. The cost savings in man hours alone can be huge. Many folks get stuck looking at the upfront costs and don’t look at the long term savings in man hours and user downtime. You have a user today that goes down, how long does it take to get them back up? If you are really good, an hour? How about a couple of minutes or less? How much money are you saving now? From: Garcia-Moran, Carlos [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, February 05, 2010 7:03 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Virtual Desktop (VMWare) VMware View is only cost effective for larger deployments or certain type of deployments. Base cost is 150/250 for Enterprise /premier per concurrent license. Add cost of OS plus PC or Term Device and you are still looking around 600-700 per user. Now that’s just for the VDI’s you also need the vSphere backend to support this Hosts, Disks etc.. But it’s great for things like having 2-3 base images that are linked to a deployed pool of VDI’s you can upgrade the base image and have your new pools updated with what you did. Helps also on places that have Shifts or Classroom where you can do a Many-to-one implementation Thx! Carlos From: Tom Miller [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, February 05, 2010 9:50 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Virtual Desktop (VMWare) I haven't looked at VMWare yet, it's on the list. Cost is important for us. Generally the product that gets the job done the cheapest (and fewest man-hours) gets the sale. Our various Citrix products are expensive but have saved me many hours, so it's a toss up so far. Does Microsoft have a virtual desktop enterprise product? >>> "Wilhelm, Scott" <[email protected]> 2/5/2010 9:31 AM >>> We’ve only looked at VMWare solutions so far since we have already virtualized 90% of our servers using their products. Have you compared Citrix vs VMWare to see the pro’s & con’s? I’m guessing we’ll go w/ VMWare, but I guess it wouldn’t be smart to exclude everyone atleast for the fact finding purposes. Thanks! From: Tom Miller [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, February 05, 2010 9:13 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Virtual Desktop (VMWare) We are looking into the Citrix virtual desktop, as our Citrix representative claims that over the long term is it cheaper. I'm not sure about that and asked for some numbers, since Citrix licensing and renewals are very expensive (and there is no non-profit/gov't pricing). We already use several Citrix products though, and they work well. I can see about 60% of our staff using VM desktops, which might be able to save us money. Any other technologies to review? >>> "Wilhelm, Scott" <[email protected]> 2/5/2010 7:19 AM >>> Has anyone setup their desktops to run in a virtual environment on a organization wide scale? We’re a k-12 school looking for whatever cost savings, and I’m trying to investigate whether it’s worth the switch, if there’d be an actual cost savings, and what solutions are available and work best. Any information would be greatly appreciated. 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