Despite it’s not considering Virtual Desktop Infrastructures (VDIs) ready for enterprise deployment, Microsoft is embracing the technology pretty fast, modifying the Windows Vista licensing to be VDI-friendly.
At WinHEC 2007 Microsoft reveals even more, disclosing upcoming System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) will act as desktop broker in a VDI environment, as BetaNews reported:
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Under the new system, a thin client logging on will request a VM image from SCVMM. Based on the user profile it pulls up from that logon, SCVMM will then locate the best server on which the image of Vista will be run. Applications licensed to that user will then be run from the VM, as well as the seat for Vista that’s licensed to that user. But only a thin virtualization connection package will address that image remotely…
Read the whole article at source.
VMware moved earlier but used a different approach: instead of building from scratch desktop brokering capabilities on top of its management tool, VirtualCenter, preferred acquisition of an existing desktop broker provider: Propero.
Update: A slide from WinHEC 2007 describes with more details architecture Microsoft plan to use for VDI scenarios. It clarifies Virtual Machine Manager will not act as desktop broker as previously supposed.
