VIDEO: End User Computing: VDI or Desktop as a Service?

Mark G.:

VDI is typically seen as virtual desktop environment, or virtual desktop infrastructure, that runs in your data center and it's your desktops. You control them just like you would physical desktops.

The benefit VDI brings is the operational processes and the changes on how people manage many, many desktops, the user profiles. Essentially becomes Desktop as a Service. You think of it as a utility. And you flip a light switch you expect the electricity to be on. You pass through your login you expect your desktop and your data to be there. That's where VDI has been since we started rolling it out and, God, 20 years ago before it was termed VDI. Today, it's driven by a couple of vendors, and we just expect that those services function.

Desktop as a Service, on the other hand, removes a lot of that from your control. So, you're not interested about which broker you're using or which vendor provides you the infrastructure. You're not worrying about the underlying hardware. Someone else is providing you with desktop, all you now have is the responsibility for how does that desktop connect to my data and my applications for my users.

Everything from, is it the cost that's the driving factor, is it your technical staff, do you not have enough, do you have too many, I mean, how do you want to manage the environment? And also where are you running your servers? Today are you all on premise or are you in a hybrid cloud, and where your applications might live, and are they legacy applications, are they aware of the cloud and can run in a hybrid environment? All of these things are taken into consideration as you decide between Desktop as a Service or your own traditional VDI. Not one answer is right for everyone.