Desktops to VM's

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loudsnare

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An office neighbor needs to replace 6 old workstations into one ESXi server, and have each station connect via a terminal to the VM's.

Assuming ESXi on the server side, what are some good methods to have terminals get connected? Anything else required on the ESX side?

I heard there are some new LCD monitors that have built in capabilities for this stuff. Or methods to turn standard keyboard and monitors to connect?

Thanks
 
Get a low-power workstation with a stripped-down windows7 install with a desktop icon that takes them to their personalized windows VM?
 
Several options..
Since your saying 6 workstations, Im guessing you want low cost.
Low cost would be a small small machine (netbook, laptop or atom pc) to connect RDP to the VM's
- youd connect via RDP, so youll have RDP graphics response and generally be OK
more cost would be VMView and/or PCoIP, but thats a few hundred more per VM
You could use PCoIP clients to connect to the VM's via RDP, thats what I did for 4 VM's at a customers auto body shop...clients were $250ish each
 
Either method sounds good. They already have some low powered PC's with Win7. What's the client software called to connect to a VM for the desktop users?

The $250 each sounds good too. Which models are around $250? I priced a few around $400-500 and HP had one for $280. Any recommendations would be great. And I assume they are mostly compatible with ESXi?

Thanks a lot for the help.
 
If you are using low-end win7 home, you would use the builtin (and free) remote desktop client. This is how my wife's virtual windows for her job works. She loves it.
 
How much do you want to spend?

RDP = free
PCoIP = a vCenter instance and a View Connection server at bare minimum. Many spinning parts for what might not be necessary.

Obviously I don't think RDP is superior, but there is no magic solution to connect to a VM in ESXi over PCoIP without a View instance.
 
it depends on cost.
your looking to get 6 new workstations, obviously you dont want the price to cost more than 6 new i5/i7/amd computers..
You would use the current machine to run RDP to connect to the VM's, nothing has to be compatable with ESXi because yoour connecting to the Windows OS, not the ESXi machine.
- Dont forget your going to have to buy 6 OS licenses for the VM's, enough memory for 6 VM's to run good, and a fast enough HDD/SSD system to hold the VM's (ESXi can be installed onto a USB thumb drive). Dont forget a RAID card for the ESX machine, and a battery backup unit.
I bought a lot of 10 Devon TC10 devices LINKY.
Resold 5 to a customer for there use, which paid for 8 of them, then resold 4 to another customer which paid for the last 2 and gave me some fun money to spend, and still have one for myself to use. Ebay has some PCoIP devices for decent prices
 
Thanks guys. Seems the best method is the built in Win RDP for them. VMware View licensing seems too high. I'll check out ebay for PCoIP devices as well. I appreciate all the advice.
 
loudsnare said:
Thanks guys. Seems the best method is the built in Win RDP for them. VMware View licensing seems too high. I'll check out ebay for PCoIP devices as well. I appreciate all the advice.
Click to expand...

Essentially, if you want to dump them all off to one host just put some decent drives in them if you plan on using local storage. I don't know if SSD would be in the budget but I moved my personal web server off to a VM sitting on a standalone ESXi host with dual Crucial M4's and latency is never an issue.

This screen shot is showing normal usage of 200'ish people currently using a forum website of mine.

ssd.png
 
I agree with SSD...moved my home ESXi server from 250gb sata 7200 drives to Crucial M4 128gb drives...great improvement, so quiet the wife doesnt notice it behind the TV
 
dbwillis said:
I agree with SSD...moved my home ESXi server from 250gb sata 7200 drives to Crucial M4 128gb drives...great improvement, so quiet the wife doesnt notice it behind the TV
Click to expand...

Ha! when I built that 1950 at home Saturday before racking it at the colo the lady was not impressed. She said that she wasn't fond of the airplane in the livingroom.
 
Why not just use a cheap Thin Client for the RDP access, You've already stated that RDP is enough. Get some basic thin clients, for RDP access and be done. Do the users need peripherial support?
 
Some are CAD workstations, so I wanted to make sure the graphics can handle 1920x1200 at least.
 
loudsnare said:
Some are CAD workstations, so I wanted to make sure the graphics can handle 1920x1200 at least.
Click to expand...

Most of them can, but that'll be the extent of it. How much video processing power is needed? That'll be your killer in this scenario. Might be better to spring for new CAD machines for them and Thin Clients for the rest.
 
they just do architecture CAD, so nothing video intensive. No 3D renderings or anything.
 
There are a number of parts to running virtualized desktops:

1) ESXi host
2) vCenter server (View gets its system listing from this)
3) View connection server (your thin/zero clients connect to this)

From there you install the View agent on the VM and point the zero or thin client at the View connection server using the View client for the thin client or the built-in client on the zero client.

I use zero clients as they offer superior performance over thin clients using PCoIP. Zero clients do not do RDP, just PCoIP. Since you're only using 6 workstations, you really don't need vCenter/View. Just enable RDP, set the systems to static IP, and connect to them via thin clients. Cheap for such an environment. View and its required licenses are fairly costly. You will definitely notice the screen refresh differences of RDP vs. PCoIP. PCoIP blows RDP out of the water (especially with vSphere/View 5) in terms of user experience.
 
PCoIP devices do do RDP, at least the ones I use (Dell, LeadTek, Devon IT, Connexxus)
 
Sounds like you have the server side figured out as guest client OSs. But...

Windows Multipoint makes for a great terminal server for RDP thin clients. It's a relatively cheap way to get into TS. It pairs really well with SBS2011.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2011/02/23/windows-multipoint-server-2011-and-interaction-with-small-business-server-2011-essentials.aspx

I risk being blasted for mentioning MPS and SBS. However, you said "office neighbor". I know how that support goes, and this would allow for minimal interaction from your side.
 
terisk, thanks. I'll stick with ESXi since I'm comfortable with it.

funny, I always try to help everyone out, but there's something about office neighbors which gives them a free ticket to ask for 24/7 tech support.
 
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I am not saying the following is a better suggestion. but it is one I just ran into and felt it might be worth mentioning to people stuck a similar situation.

One of my clients did a similar setup for a manufacturing center/ Warehouse.
They had a very small budget and needed 11 standard windows terminals and 2 CAD workstations.

they already had 3 old-school cheep-o thin clients connecting to a win2000 Terminal Session in the manufacturing area. (these were replace in the upgrade) This was one reason to go the route they went. some familiarity and able to self support it for basic stuff.

Their new setup was based on a hyper-V on 2008-R2sp1.
By using the remoteFX features, the CAD worked fine on the client using the host to do the rendering. They are using 2 Quadro cards they already had from the existing cad workstation and put them into the server.
The RemoteFX USB Redirection worked fine also on all of the clients.

For the client side, they used Windows 7 Thin PC
They picked up 18 small nettop barbones for about $100 each on sale. stuck 1 GB of ram and an SD card into each for the local boot drive.
The extra clients were for future expansion or device failure.

They picked up the Thin PC licenses through their Microsoft SA subscription.

They looked at the VMware route. It was just not affordable for them.
The combination of hardware and licenses.
 
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