Virtual Desktop

This is the third article in a multi-part series about building and maintaining an inexpensive scalable platform for VDI in enterprise environments. Previously in this Series In the last article I explained that shared storage should be avoided, for two reasons: it is (very) expensive, and you, the VDI guy, are not in control. The storage guys are.

The HotPlug functionality of VMware ESX(i) 4 and 5 has the negative side effect that it is easily possible to “eject” hardware devices from inside the virtual machine, completely removing the respective device from the VM configuration. This is especially bad if it happens to the network card, and others have already described how to prevent that from happening (e.g. here and here).

A desktop delivered from the cloud, accessible from everywhere, providing just the right amount of computing power for the task at hand, maintained by the cloud provider and paid for only when used - a dream? Or a commodity in ten years’ time? Time will tell, but in the meantime let us find out if such a virtual wonder device is even possible.