Let’s say you’ve decided to venture down the path of VDI. Great! We fully support that decision! Now where do you begin?
The answer to that question – as is typical for so many questions – is…it depends.
What type of users are you trying to move to virtual desktops and what types of tasks do they perform? How big is your IT team and do they have any experience with particular technologies? How sensitive is your organization to cost?
Your answers to those questions help guide you down the correct path, either choosing a full-stack solution, investing in a hyperconverged infrastructure, or going open source and rolling your own. Let’s take a few moments to break these three options down.
Why choose a full-stack solution
Is your IT team well versed in VMware or Citrix? Do you have users with a pretty standard work flow, like help desk workers? I realize this sounds odd coming from someone at Leostream, but maybe you take the obvious route and look at a full-stack solution such as VMware Horizon or Citrix XenDesktop. They’re the “comfort zone” solutions.
Unfortunately, they’re also more expensive and complex solutions.
Are you an IT team of one? If so, building and maintaining a full-stack solution can turn into an all-consuming task, leaving you with little time for your other responsibilities.
Does your organization prefer open solutions? If you go with a full-stack solution, you lessen your ability to look at newer technologies as they come to market. Full-stack solutions are all about vendor lock-in, so be 100% sure of the vendor you select if you go the full-stack route.
Are the extra bells and whistles not needed in your deployment? If your organization is cost-sensitive, paying for the extra features available in a full-stack solution may not make sense for you.
So, if you think you want a less complex and lower cost option, where can you turn? For one, you can consider hyperconverged!
When to look for a hyperconverged infrastructure solution
Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) solutions drastically simplify building the data center component of your VDI environment, which makes them great for large and small IT teams, alike. Then, it’s just a matter of finding a solution that can model your VDI workloads on top of that infrastructure. Yes, the full-stack solutions can be placed on top of a hyperconverged infrastructure, but that reintroduces complexity in your environment.
Instead, look for an independent remote access management tool. While I’d personally prefer you take a look at Leostream, we aren’t the only option on the market. So, how do you choose?
Similar to when picking out a full-stack solution, always put your end users first. Which solution allows you to model the VDI workflows your users need? Which gives the best end-user experience? Do you want to host the remote access platform yourself, or are you hoping for a hosted service?
And, of course, you need to look for the remote access platform that works best with the hyperconverged infrastructure solution you’ve chosen. If you want to model non-persistent desktops, you need a solution that can automatically create and delete virtual machines on your chosen HCI. That requires the remote access platform integrate with the APIs provided by the HCI platform, such as Leostream does for Scale Computing HC3.
All that said, what if you want to avoid the vendor lock-in of full-stack VDI solutions, but don’t want to go the HCI route? Or, if you just can’t get enough of open source solutions? That’s when you should consider rolling your own.
The argument for rolling your own VDI solution
Building a custom VDI solution may sound overly ambitious, but there are plenty of good reasons you may want to go that route.
For one, it allows you to investigate open source solutions, such as OpenStack, which can further lower the cost of building your VDI environment.
Rolling your own also allows you to be more agile, adding or removing technologies as they come to market or fall out of favor. That, in turn, allows you to remain competitive by always using the best-of-breed solutions in your VDI environment.
The key to rolling your own is to find a remote access platform that allows you to continue reaping the above benefits. Your remote access platform must integrate with all of the different hosting platforms, display protocols, and client devices you want to include in your VDI environment, and it must adapt to the market just like you.
Luckily, that’s one of Leostream’s many strengths! We allow you to build the VDI solution that works best for you. Sure, you can use a full-stack solution, but there’s always cost and complexity associated with that.
As we like to say, “Unstack yourself!” You’ll be glad you did!