Understanding Windows Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

Recent licensing changes signal stronger Microsoft support for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) technology. VDI promises to reduce desktop management costs, improve flexibility for desktop access, and enhance security. However, realizing these benefits requires critical decisions about which users will use VDI, and what client hardware, server hardware, and virtualization architecture will be used to deliver it.

The Windows VDI

In a VDI, a user’s desktop (including the OS, applications, and user data) run on a virtual machine (VM) hosted on a centrally managed server, rather than locally on a user’s PC. The user’s local device, such as a PC or thin-client terminal, interacts with the desktop on the remote VM. The device connects to the VM using Remote Desktop Services (RDS, a superset of what was previously called Terminal Services), which forwards user input and display output over the network between the VM and the device. With the introduction of Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft repurposed and expanded the capabilities of Terminal Services components beyond desktop display to also manage connections from local clients to VMs and provisioning of VMs on the server.