Windows Virtual Desktop vs Remote Desktop

Customers often come to us asking for VDI, but after understanding what they are truly looking for, theyunderstand how RDS can meet their needs and savemoney.Lets talk about the difference and why one vs. the other may be beneficial to you.

What is VDI? What is RDS?
VDI stands for Virtual Desktop InfrastructureandRDS stands for Remote Desktop Session Hosts.What this really means isVDI is built around the Windows ClientOperating System, Windows 10.RDS is built aroundtheWindows ServerOperating System.At this point you are thinking,of course I want my users on Windows 10, not Windows Server.Right?Well, maybe not.

Keep in mind that Windows 10 only supports one user per Operating System instance.This means if you need to support 4 users, you need 4 instances, or virtual machines, runningWindows 10.In a Cloud environment, that means you need 4 separate virtual machines.From a cost perspective, that means you must pay the runtime costof4 virtual machines and the Windows 10 licensing cost for 4 Windows 10 instances.Below isthe cost breakdown for 4 users.

With RDS and Windows Server, one instance of Windows Server 2016 can support as many simultaneous users as the underlying hardware will support.For a moderately priced Azure VM, we have found that one instance of Windows Server 2016 can usually support fourto eightsimultaneous users.This means that one single Windows Server license and one single Azure virtual machine can now support your four users at a lower cost than Windows 10. Of course, you can make the virtual machine largertosupport additional users, but we do not advocate continuing to make the VM larger, that can get expensive quickly. We prefer having multiple VMs, each one supportingbetween 4 and 8 users.TheMyCloudITplatform supports auto-scaling so those additional VMs can be startedas user demandincreases, then after hours, the VMs can be taken offline as users log off.We have a great article talking about how you can keep each VM smaller while using auto-scaling to increase capacity as users log in.

What's the Difference?
Thetwobigdifferencesbetween VDI and RDS really comes down to reducing costandhow you acquire your Windows 10 license.With Azure, your runtime cost includes the Windows Server license and user CALs, you just need to add the RDS SALs for each RDS user.The same cannot be said for Windows 10licenses.Microsoft is releasing new Windows 10 licensing mechanisms, but I have not seena complete solution for running Windows 10 in Azure in a VDI environment.

From a technical perspective,Windows 10 client OS managed by the Windows Server infrastructure requiresthe ability to be able to createnew virtual machines on demand.For every VDI scenario I have seen, that means the Windows Server infrastructure will require access to the Hypervisor host.Azure does not expose the Hypervisor hosts to external management, so the only way I can seerunning VDI in Azure is with nested virtualization.That means that whether you have 1 or 100 users connected, you mustalwayshave an Azure nested virtual infrastructure that can support all 100 usersrunning all the time.To me, this limits your abilityto manageruntime costsifyou areusing VDI.Again, when using the Windows Server 2016 OS, VMs can easily be started and stopped directly in Azure.

Will It GetEasier?
I believe that using Windows 10 in Azure will be easier over time, but for now, using Windows Server 2016 and RDS will provide the capabilities your users need, while providing a cost-effective solution.

Have other questions? Check out some of our other common questions and answers here.

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