I recommend that you update your field knowledge a little bit before you spread misinformation like this in the future. VDI is not synonymous with VMware and Citrix. If that were true, your comments would be true, but it is not.

Virtual Bridges is a venture-backed company that has been offering a VDI solution since before VMWare ever coined the phrase. Virtual Bridges\’ VERDE VDI solution is available in partnership with IBM and Canonical and also supports Red Hat and Novell.

VERDE is not your typical VDI solution. First of all, it has been shipping as a KVM-based solution for almost sixteen months- the first in the market. Before that is was based on QEMU. It currently supports Windows 7, XP, Windows 2000 and all major Linux distros such as Ubuntu, Red Hat and Novell as guest environments giving users maximum flexibility. The VERDE infrastructure runs on Linux servers from Ubuntu, Red Hat or Novell.

Some things you should know…

VERDE pioneered true dynamic provisioning that uses a gold master imaging model so that instead of managing many images in the virtual environment as you imply, users only need to manage a few gold instances that are provisioned dynamically at authentication time. The VERDE approach is not a throw-away instance like thin provisioning, nor is it a stateful VM that persists on disk, but instead is a dynamic session that incorporates a gold master of the OS and Apps and couples this with unique user information so that each dynamic session is personalized for each user but the administrative burden around the OS and apps is dramatically lowered.

Each time a use logs in, the write-protected gold master is loaded into memory and coupled with the user\’s persistent date (docs and settings) to create a unique, personalized session. When the user logs out, the OS and apps in memory are flushed so that any corruption from malware or unauthorized installation of applications does not persist making VERDE sessions impervious to malware corruption, yet retaining the users unique information and settings.

VERDE also operates well on low bandwidth environments through a unique approach using either our optimized protocol or our Cloud Branch capability. Our Cloud Branch capabilityeffectively eliminates WAN latencies by allowing gold masters to be managed centrally but execute on local branch or managed-customer sites, without any management or intervention at the branch or managed-customer site.

Because we use KVM virtualization technology, and because we do not do any bit duplication or persistent storage, other than the users personal data and settings, our densities are in the order you mention as viable. In fact, when you look at VERDE, plus server hardware, plus per user storage needs, VERDE is in the neighborhood of $200 per user, compared to over $1000 per user for Vmware or Citrix. By offering the ability to use either Windows or Linux clients, the economic burden of the MS VECD can also be minimized.

Ken, VDI is the future, just not the VDI that you are thinking of.

Parallels is a TS hosting model. This is not VDI. Citrix and Vmware have tried to extend a server-hypervisor-based model to VDI and it is not efficient. Please look at VERDE for what VDI really is capable of.

Don\’t throw the VDI baby out with the dirty server-virtualization vendor bathwater. VDI in the form of VERDE does deliver the benefits that users are looking for.

If you want to learn more about VERDE check out http://www.vbridges.com.

Also, with some of the after hours/continuing education classes that are taught where I work, a VDI solution lets me easily provision out {n} desktops for those students without having to make changes to my local resources to accommodate the software they need. VDI also lets me provide those desktops to faculty/staff/students at home.

I\’d like to have a demo of a real live VDI client and a description of your architecture if you\’re using VDI on a large scale. It would be interesting to compare what you spent/spend on it vs. using laptops/portable computers.

But, if VDI doesn\’t work for the majority, it could very well not be worth the extra effort. VDI takes a little bit of work to setup, if it\’s only used in a couple of instances, it\’s certainly not worth it.

now we can have apps in the cloud (be it private or public)

bandwidth is still a problem but not as much as you may think (except if we\’re considering Design and Illustration. However, as adobe demonstrated you can have a photoshop like app in the browser. Video editing is a problem, but you could never have that in VDI either.

I believe the future is in some sort of browser appliances.
Servers should serve services, not full blown operating systems

I wonder if VDI is worth the trouble while we shift our models.

@mteixeira – you have the right idea–thank you.

@cjcox – well said. \”Traditional\” VDI will work if you are a light user: word processing, email and Internet browsing. If you\’re doing heavy lifting, fugettaboutit.