New Virtualized Desktop Scenarios Licensed

Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop (VECD) subscription licenses will be modified to permit use of centrally managed virtual machines (VMs) in more scenarios, such as outsourcing and use of VECD VMs on local business or home computers. These changes, scheduled to take effect Jan. 2009, will make VECD the preferred way (and in some cases, the only way) for organizations to license scenarios involving Vista or Windows XP VMs that are hosted on servers or client machines. Although it offers considerable flexibility for where VMs can run and how they can be accessed, VECD’s most significant drawback is its cost.

Subscriptions License Centralized Desktops

VECD subscription licenses were introduced in 2007 to license the Windows desktop OS in VMs on servers. The goal was to permit organizations to centralize users’ Windows environment and applications on servers through the use of hardware virtualization technologies. In this architecture, each server hosts many VMs running Vista or Windows XP, and users’ local devices communicate with the VMs via Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) or a similar graphics terminal protocol. Each client can connect to more than one remote VM simultaneously; however, each remote VM can be used by only one user at a time. This architecture allows organizations to provide users with a standardized environment that can be easily provisioned, backed up, maintained, and moved around as needed.