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Virtual Desktop Infrastructure . State of Washington Department of Financial Institutions Ron Seymour CSBS 2011. What is VDI?. Rebirth of the dumb terminal Striped down client PC with pretty much just Windows and some drivers Thin Client Appliance And a Bunch of Servers.
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Virtual Desktop Infrastructure State of Washington Department of Financial Institutions Ron Seymour CSBS 2011
What is VDI? • Rebirth of the dumb terminal • Striped down client • PC with pretty much just Windows and some drivers • Thin Client Appliance • And a Bunch of Servers
Why Do VDI? • Opportunity to reduce cost • Increased efficiency, reliability, and productivity • Supports Disaster Recovery • Supports Business Continuity • Standardization • Reduced hardware refresh cycles
Implementation • Started with a Pilot (June 2009) • 16 staff – including several managers • Implemented as Shared Service • Today we have about 116 deployed
Washington Configuration • Citrix XenDesktop • Standard Windows Configuration • MS Office • Antivirus • Device Drivers • Citrix XenApp • Special Apps – (MS Project, Visio, STAR …) • Appsense • Personalization Software • Keeps folks look and feel • Wyse Thin Clients
Advantages • Support is much easier • Standardization • Available anywhere there is a good network connection • Almost any device will work • Reduces/eliminated the refresh cycles • Ease of deploying patches • Ease of updating or deploying new software
Challenges • Bandwidth • Gets blamed for everything • Requires techs to clear things at the server on occasion • Upfront Cost does not save money • When you are dead you are really dead