Study: Virtual Desktop Ownership Costs Higher Than PC

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Microsoft recently published the results of a six-month total cost of ownership study of virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). The study concludes that VDI delivers value for specialized user segments such as contractors. However for offices workers in a VDI environment, the total cost of ownership was higher by 11% per user than that of a well-managed PC environment. Additionally, many workers will find the VDI user experience unsatisfactory. Microsoft recommends that organizations assess their use cases and drivers for VDI to ensure the best computing option for their users.
 
I would take that study with a grain of salt. Its in MS and Intels best intrest to steer the market away from VD.
 
MrValentine said:
I would take that study with a grain of salt. Its in MS and Intels best intrest to steer the market away from VD.
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You do understand MS is pushing VDI tech on 2008 r2 pretty hard right? I also have first hand experience with implementing VD and the costs are not quite efficient enough now to warrant it with exception to employees with a special need.
 
Setting up a virtual server farm is not as easy as it's made out to be and the first couple of months are spent tweaking performance or squashing bugs. It has advantages but there's disadvantages as well, and the article is actually trying to sell you on VDI or MED-V to overcome some of the issues.
 
this isn't taking into the account of cost of support. its much more expensive to support pcs remotely and time consuming without citrix.
 
Maybe I'm dumb, but why is it in Microsoft's interest? Don't you have to pay for the license either way?
 
Anyone have a link to this study? It appears that tweet link sends you to the PR campaign of VDI of Microsoft, and not the study iteself......
 
jroe52 said:
this isn't taking into the account of cost of support. its much more expensive to support pcs remotely and time consuming without citrix.
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^This. PITA doesn't begin to describe it.
 
If your in this field and have been for a while this is and always has been a huge... DUH!!!
I seriously can't believe someone spent money to have this report created.

We are truly educating ourselves to complete stupidity.
 
arXiv76 said:
If your in this field and have been for a while this is and always has been a huge... DUH!!!
I seriously can't believe someone spent money to have this report created.

We are truly educating ourselves to complete stupidity.
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Being able to appeal to authority allows people who, like you, claim to know what they're doing the ability to back it up beyond their subjective experience and professional opinion.
 
For virtual desktops, Microsoft would much rather you use terminal servers and the associated licensing over a virtual desktop product.

Now, from personal experiece: Unless you're not responsible for the hardware the user is connecting from, Mid-range PCs are just as cheap as thin clients to support a call center or large PC environment. Putting a thin client and VDI in the datacenter causes just as many headaches (if not more) than a well managed PC desktop environment. Get Novell's ZEN to manage your applications and images (or WDS, but SCOM/SCCM don't manage apps as well as ZEN). Or use Citrix to manage terminal server farms. Put apps that require a lot of resources (CAD, Crystal Reports, .NET developer) on the desktop, and common apps (office, ACT, term emulators) on the citrix farm.
 
4saken said:
You do understand MS is pushing VDI tech on 2008 r2 pretty hard right? I also have first hand experience with implementing VD and the costs are not quite efficient enough now to warrant it with exception to employees with a special need.
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I second that, It's a great idea in theory but the recurring licensing fee for the os(s) is the deal breaker. Unless that has changed.
 
az_max said:
For virtual desktops, Microsoft would much rather you use terminal servers and the associated licensing over a virtual desktop product.

Now, from personal experiece: Unless you're not responsible for the hardware the user is connecting from, Mid-range PCs are just as cheap as thin clients to support a call center or large PC environment. Putting a thin client and VDI in the datacenter causes just as many headaches (if not more) than a well managed PC desktop environment. Get Novell's ZEN to manage your applications and images (or WDS, but SCOM/SCCM don't manage apps as well as ZEN). Or use Citrix to manage terminal server farms. Put apps that require a lot of resources (CAD, Crystal Reports, .NET developer) on the desktop, and common apps (office, ACT, term emulators) on the citrix farm.
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uh no. They have pretty much married hyper v and app v to 2008 r2 and partnered with Citrix to present a end to end VDI infrastructure.

The article is correct but it fails to take into account TCM - total cost of management. While ownership costs can be higher (because your licensing it the same, your hardware requirements are usually greater and more expensive - servers, memory, storage, dc rack space, power, cooling, dr, etc...) to give the user a similar experience to a workstation. Not to mention that thin client costs are close to what you can pay for a low end laptop or workstation.

The cost savings comes in ease of management. I am not talking about a "well managed" desktop environment, that is just good IT. I mean a closed loop. No balance sheets on laptop hard drives, or usb thumb drives...no need for encrypted hard drives on laptops, a work from anywhere model that allows flexible work arrangements for your customers, ease of virus, patching, and updating, roll back of an entire desktop environment...(using storage tools like snap mirror or snap backup and restore) - No life cycle to manage on the desktop hardware (or laptop) reduced power costs (can be substantial for large corporations) ...the benefits are endless over a physical based infrastructure.
 
groebuck said:
The article is correct but it fails to take into account TCM - total cost of management. While ownership costs can be higher (because your licensing it the same, your hardware requirements are usually greater and more expensive - servers, memory, storage, dc rack space, power, cooling, dr, etc...) to give the user a similar experience to a workstation. Not to mention that thin client costs are close to what you can pay for a low end laptop or workstation.

The cost savings comes in ease of management.
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Exactly.
 
In other news, GM announced that buying Japanese cars cost more than buying American. Nike concluded a study which showed new shoes should be purchased every week. Best Buy concluded a study which showed that buying things from Best Buy everyday is more satisfying than buying from any other store.

Come on, give me a break. It's in MS's best interest to show that virtual desktops are more expensive to operate. Rather or not they actually are, you gotta consider the source here.
 
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