VDI has been around for years now, and there are a few companies that have been strong in this sector.
There have always been many factors, why everyone does not use VDI solutions and have kept people from jump on the bandwagon, Cost, Ease of Deployment, Management, Video streaming capability’s….and the list goes on.
I think though with the release of Server 2012 and the ease of deployment, management of VDI infrastructures, improvements in video streaming, Microsoft is heading in the right direction to be number one in VDI technology. I think many companies will and should take time to reevaluate if VDI is right for them.
Here are just a few of the new features and enhancements that are part of Server 2012 and Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure solution.
Centralized Management
- Single Console to control virtual desktops, session based desktops and remote apps.
- Many new Powershell commands to ease deployments and tasks.
Virtual Desktops
- Personal and Pooled desktops, each user will have their own desktop that will be published to them. The will get it from a pool or collection or, they would get the same machine every time.
- Templates can be created for pooled desktops to ease deployments.
- User Profile disks will hold the user’s personal setting without the need to place them on the virtual desktop.
Session Based
- Session Based is like terminal services, multiple user sessions working independently on one server.
- User Profile disks will hold the user’s personal setting without the need to place them on the users session.
- Configuration and session management now use fair share, this helps distribute the resource evenly without impacting the systems performance.
RemoteApps
- Publish apps or desktop to the users start menu or web interface.
- Published apps give control over the apps that are in your environment.
- Can run alongside already installed applications. This is nice if you need two versions of the same software available to the user.
- RemoteApps are integrated into the Centralized Management Console.
RemoteFX
- Enhance the uses experience give the feel of the operating system running local on the user machine.
- Seamless delivery of virtual desktop and RemoteApp programs, including 3-D graphics and video, across local area networks and wide area networks, even with limited bandwidth and high latency, by dynamically adjusting the fidelity of the user experience based on changing network conditions.
- Fully supports Touch screen devices.
- Allows USB-based devices, including flash drives, to be connected to the client devices and used from virtual or session-based desktops.
