Gartner delivers the technology-related insight necessary for our clients to make the right decisions, every day. 0 Server-hosted Virtual Desktops Agenda • Project background • Evaluation criteria • Product assessments • Conclusion 1 Project Background 2 Server-hosted Virtual Desktops Project Background • Five month Burton Group project • Goal: identify enterprise-class server-hosted virtual desktop (SHVD) evaluation criteria • Input sources: analysts, clients, and vendors • Outcome - 45 page report detailing SHVD selection criteria - Notes that differentiate “features” from “marketing checkboxes” - Three 25 page product profiles (Citrix, VMware, Quest), more on the way (Microsoft, Oracle) 3 Evaluation Criteria 4 Server-hosted Virtual Desktops • Evaluation Criteria Structure - Selecting a SHVD solution typically entails a long term (3-5 years or more) commitment in order to realize a true return on investment (ROI) - Features should be assessed by grouping into three buckets: • Required: absolute necessities • Preferred: important features that result in better experience, operational management, and improved TCO • Optional: use-case driven features needed in select deployment scenarios 5 Server-hosted Virtual Desktops • Evaluation Criteria - User experience - Service advertising and connection brokerage - Business continuity - Network - Storage - Back-end virtual infrastructure - Management - Security - Guest OS support - Licensing - Product support - Third-party vendor support 6 Product Assessments 7 XenDesktop 4 SP1 Platinum XenDesktop 4 SP1 Platinum Scorecard 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% Required Preferred Optional 8 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Platinum Bottom Line Assessment • XenDesktop 4.0 SP1 meets all requirements for large-scale enterprise deployments • Suitable for small-scale to large enterprise deployments • Complete core feature set • Leads in security and user experience features 9 Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Platinum Strengths • Complete core feature set • Flexible desktop and application delivery • Supports multiple virtualization platforms • Strong User Experience feature set • Diverse endpoint OS compatibility • Rich supporting ecosystem • Strong WAN performance 10 Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Platinum Weaknesses • No security hardening guidelines • Deployment and management complexity • Management console scalability: 5,000 desktops • Config file and virtual desktop image integrity checks 11 VMware View 4.5 Premier View 4.5 Premier scorecard 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% Required Preferred Optional 12 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% VMware View 4.5 Premier Bottom Line Assessment • View 4.5 meets all requirements for large-scale enterprise deployments • Suitable for small-scale to large enterprise deployments • Rich integration with VMware product portfolio 13 VMware View 4.5 Premier Strengths • Rich integration with VMware vSphere infrastructure • Solid core feature base • Centralized management • Best-in-class management scalability: 10,000 desktops • Simple deployment • Active Directory integration 14 VMware View 4.5 Premier Weaknesses • No security hardening guidelines • Endpoint security health assessment integration • USB device access restrictions • No user application self-service • PCoIP immaturity (no integration with Riverbed accelerators, for example) • Low-bandwidth WAN support • Supports only VMware-based back ends • No XenApp integration 15 Quest vWorkspace 7.1 Enterprise Quest vWorkspace 7.1 Enterprise Edition Scorecard 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% Required Preferred Optional 16 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Quest vWorkspace 7.1 Enterprise Bottom Line Assessment • Not a solution for the large enterprise - No enterprise management integration - No administrative change logging (i.e., audit trail) - Short support lifecycle • Well suited for small and medium enterprises - Rich Windows integration - Broad endpoint support 17 Quest vWorkspace 7.1 Enterprise Strengths • Supports multiple virtualization back end platforms • Ease-of-deployment • Strong user experience feature set • Diverse endpoint compatibility 18 Quest vWorkspace 7.1 Enterprise Weaknesses • No security hardening guidelines • No admin change logging • No published management APIs or SNMP support • Product support limited to 2 years • No third party ISV certification program • No support for disconnected virtual desktops • No support for common smart phones, tablets, and netbooks 19 Microsoft VDI Suite Premium Microsoft VDI Suite Premium Scorecard 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% Required Preferred Optional 20 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Microsoft VDI Suite Premium Bottom Line Assessment • Not a solution for the large enterprise - Limited scalability (designed to scale to hundreds of desktops) - Microsoft recommends its joint solution with Citrix for larger scalability requirements - No concurrent user or named user licensing model • Well suited for small and medium enterprises - Rich Windows integration - Simple deployment and management - Broad endpoint support 21 Microsoft VDI Suite Premium Strengths • Rich Windows platform integration • Management capabilities • Value • Strong supporting vendor ecosystem 22 Microsoft VDI Suite Premium Weaknesses • Scalability - For scale beyond hundreds of desktops, Microsoft recommends its joint solution with Citrix • Required management consoles • Integration with storage array provisioning features • Low-bandwidth/high-latency WAN support • Disconnected virtual desktop support 23 Comparison Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 VMware View 4.5 Quest vWorkspace 7.1 Microsoft VDI Suite 0% 20% 40% Required Preferred Optional 24 60% 80% 100% Required Features User Experience Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Ability to connect from mainstream client operating systems Windows XP (Pro, Home) Vista (Home, Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate); Windows 7 (Starter, Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate – 32-bit and 64-bit); Mac OS/X (Tiger 10.4 and Leopard 10.5, Snow Leopard 10.6); Java (Java 2, Standard Edition Version 1.4.x or 1.5.x), and other less common client OSs Windows XP (Pro, Home) Vista (Home, Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate); Windows 7 (Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate – 32-bit and 64-bit). Mac OS X 10.4.9 or later (supports RDP 6 only). Microsoft does not offer a RDP client for Linux, but numerous thirdparty alternatives such as rdesktop are available. Windows XP (Pro Service Pack 1 [SP1] and higher, and Home SP2 and higher), Vista (Home, Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate), Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate), and Apple Mac OS X (Leopard 10.5 and higher). Note that the Mac OS X client only supports the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). 25 Windows XP (Pro and Home) and Vista (Home, Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate); Windows 7 (Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate [32-bit and 64-bit]); Mac OS X 10.5.5 or later. Linux: Ubuntu 8.04, 9.04, and 9.10; Debian 4.5 or later; Fedora 10; and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Desktop 5. Required Features User Experience (continued) Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Ability to connect from mainstream thin/zero clients Widespread support including 10Zig, Atrust, Devon IT, HP, IBM, Igel, Dell, Centerm, VXL, and Wyse. See the Citrix Ready Products Guide for a list of supported devices. HDX Plug-n-Play Multi-Monitor Support detects end point monitor changes and updates the virtual desktop configuration to correspond. Widespread support for RDP is available from many thinclient vendors including 10Zig, Devon IT, HP and Wyse. Microsoft does not publish a list of supported devices. 0ZiG Technology, Devon IT, HP, IGEL Technology, Thinspace, Thinware, and Wyse Technology. See “Quest vWorkspace—Thin Client support” supported devices. Wyse, HP, Dell, Fujitsu, IGEL, ClearCube, and several others. See the VMware Compatibility Guide for all supported devices. Supports changes in resolution, screen orientation and number of physical monitors. Supports changes in resolution, screen orientation and number of physical monitors Provided via PCoIP’s “Auto Display Scaling” feature. Dynamically adjusts for changes in endpoint monitor configuration 26 Required Features User Experience (continued) Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Offers a universal printer driver Yes Supported on Windows clients using RD Easy Print only Result of ThinPrint OEM. Dynamically adjusts for changes in endpoint printer configuration Yes Windows Server 2008 R2 RDS include Easy Print an XML Paper Specification (XPS) based “driver-less” print solution for client devices. Easy Print is supported on Windows XP SP3 and newer platforms. Yes Yes Yes 27 Required Features User Experience (continued) Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. Masks the impact of network latency on user-initiated actions Multiple latency reduction techniques including: SpeedScreen Image Acceleration, HDX Browser Accel, HDX Media Stream, Mouse Click Feedback and Local text echo. No. Lacks capabilities for dynamically handling network latency issues (e.g., local echo or dynamic color depth changes), but does offer multimedia redirection including specific optimization for Windows live services that can reduce some latency effects. 28 Client for Windows provides local feedback of text entry. The Experience Optimized Protocol (EOP) Xtream protocol minimizes the impact of network latency on WAN connections. VMware View 4.5 Premier Provided via PCoIP’s “Progressive Build” feature. Required Features User Experience (continued) Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. Supports multiple monitors connected to the client endpoint Up to eight monitors with 24-bit color. Maximum total screen resolution across all monitors must not exceed 56MB. Users can have up to four monitors with a total maximum resolution of 4096 x 2048 and 32-bit color (16 monitors in a Windows 7/Windows Server 2008 environment). 29 VMware View 4.5 Premier RDP 5/6-based Up to 1920x1200 connections support 32-bit color for four up to 4 monitors monitors. with a total max resolution of 4,096 x 2,048, 32-bit color. RDP 7 supports up to 16 monitors, each with a maximum screen resolution of 4,096 x 2,048. Multimonitor for Mac OS X not supported. Required Features User Experience (continued) Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Supports common universal serial bus (USB) devices Supports USB mass storage, human interface devices (HIDs), printers, scanners, and isochronous devices. Yes Supports USB mass storage, human interface devices (HIDs), printers, scanners, and isochronous transfers. Supports USB mass storage, human interface devices (HIDs), printers, scanners, and isochronous transfers. Supports USB mass storage, human interface devices (HIDs), printers, scanners, and isochronous transfers. Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Images are managed using the VMware View Composer interface. Supports persistent virtual desktops Supports shared nonpersistent virtual desktops 30 Required Features User Experience (continued) Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Supports playback of multimedia content WMV, WMA, AC3, MP3, MPG-1, MPG2, and MPG-4part2, Adobe Flash, QuickTime, and Microsoft Silverlight remoting are supported.. Multimedia content redirection can offload Windows Media Player multimedia content and Aero Glass effects from virtual desktop to endpoint to improve multimedia performance and reduce server load. All other multimedia graphics (e.g., DirectX, Direct2D, Direct3D, Silverlight, Flash, etc.) are rendered on the virtual desktop using physical server resources. WMV, WMA, AC3, MP3, MPG-1, MPG2, and MPG-4part2, Adobe Flash, QuickTime, and Microsoft Silverlight remoting are supported. 31 WMV, WMA, AC3, MP3, MPG-1, MPG2, and MPG-4 Part 2, Adobe Flash, QuickTime, and Microsoft Silverlight remoting are supported. Required Features User Experience (continued) Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Audio/video resource utilization tuning and control Policy based control of default settings for multi-media compression level, bandwidth allocation, and video frame rate. With autonomic adjustment in response to changes in latency and bandwidth. Audio and video compression settings, are configurable through group policy objects (GPO) Resource tuning for all connection protocols is configurable in the vdm_client.adm Windows GPT. PCoIP settings are configurable in the pcoip.adm GPT. 32 Supports policybased multi-level audio and video compression setting, both bit-rate and compression. Required Features Service Advertisement and Connection Brokerage Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Broker runs on a mainstream x86 server OS Supports Windows The Desktop Server 2008 R2 Delivery controller can be installed Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 Standard or Enterprise, Windows Server 2003 R2 (x86 and x64). Windows 2008 Server is not supported. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. 33 The broker is supported on Windows Server 2003 Service Pack (SP) 2, Windows Server 2003 R2 (x86 and x64), Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2 (x86 and x64). VMware View 4.5 Premier The View Connection Server can be installed on Windows Server 2003 SP2 Standard or Enterprise (32-bit or 64-bit) and Windows Server 2008 (32-bit or 64bit) server OSs. Required Features Service Advertisement and Connection Brokerage Feature Citrix Microsoft VDI Quest XenDesktop 4 Suite Premium vWorkspace SP1 Plat. 7.1 Ent. Broker scales to support 5,000 concurrent connections per server instance DDC scalability is determined by the number of sessions being launched at the same time rather than the total connection count. 5,000 concurrent connections per broker is supported. Citrix best practice is to assign multiple servers to this role to support high availability. See Delivering 5000 Desktops with Citrix XenDesktop 4. No. Microsoft does not publish scalability data for the Remote Desktop Connection Broker. For scalability into the thousands, Microsoft recommends the combined Microsoft/Citrix offering. 34 A single connection broker can support up to 2,000 connections. Multiple connection brokers can be deployed in parallel to provide redundancy and to provide scaleout to 25,000 nodes in a single farm. VMware View 4.5 Premier Scalability to 10,000 nodes supported via clustering five View Connection Servers. 2,000 connections per node are supported using RDP or PCoIP. A metadata store is maintained on each individual server, and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) replication is used to ensure the metadata for up to 10,000 desktops is maintained across all cluster nodes. For more information on View Connection Server, see the “VMware View Architecture Planning Guide” for more info. Required Features Service Advertisement and Connection Brokerage Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. Connects users to SHVDs and PC blades ICA/HDX and RDP is supported for for both VM and Blade PC environments. RDS connects users EOP and RDP are to SHVDs and blade supported for both PCs using RDP. virtual machine (VM) and blade PC environments. Provides a web-based connection interface Citrix Web Interface IIS 6.0 (32-bit) IIS 7.0 (32-bit and 64-bit) Apache Tomcat 6.0.x on RHEL 5.3 AP (x86). Remote Desktop Web Access requires Windows Server 2008 R2. 35 VMware View 4.5 Premier PCoIP support for blade PCs requires a Teradici host card in the blade. Blade PC IHV solutions such as HP Remote Graphics Software (RGS) are also supported. Web Access runs on Clients connect to IIS 6.0 or later. the web-based Optimized to work VMware View Portal with IE 7+ running to download, install, ActiveX. Browsers or update the View without ActiveX will software client. function, but some features will not be available (e.g., Windows client detection and autoinstall). Required Features Service Advertisement and Connection Brokerage Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Supports a standard (industry or de facto) remote display protocol Enables session reconnection from both current or new endpoints ICA/HDX and RDP support for both VM and Blade PC environments. RDP Quest EOP and Microsoft RDP are supported by default. RDP and PCoIP are supported by default. Yes Yes Yes Inactive session time-outs can be set to shut down idle desktops (default is 10 hours). 36 Required Features Business Continuity Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier No single point of failure No SPoF in access infrastructure, SHVD infrastructure, or support services. Critical services are monitored using a “heartbeat”. In the event of service failure an election will be called to ensure that service is maintained at all times. No SPoF exists in access infrastructure for all SHVD delivery components. View Administrator uses LDAP replication and network load balancing to provide resiliency. Scalability to five replica servers is supported. The VMwarerecommended deployment involves running the View Administrator server in a virtual machine (VM) to take advantage of the underlying virtual infrastructure HA capabilities. 37 No SPoF is in access infrastructure. The SHVD infrastructure is not dependent on application delivery controllers (ADCs) or virtual infrastructure for providing failover of critical services. However, vWorkspace is dependent on availability of its management database (Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008) for normal operation. Required Features Business Continuity (continued) Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Failure detection, isolation, and recovery Infrastructure servers perform functional validation checks to monitor operation of critical services and take action to isolate or recover failing component. Additional failure detection and recovery provided by the requisite virtual infrastructure back-end. The native Windows Server Failover Cluster (WSFC) logic provides service-level monitoring for the RDS gateway, thus providing automated recovery from a service failure. Server-level monitoring and automated recovery is also provided via Microsoft System Center Operations Manager, which is also included in the VDI Suite Platinum Edition. Failure detection and recovery provided by the requisite vSphere virtual infrastructure back end. The System Health Dashboard feature in the View Administrator interface displays virtual desktop faults in real time. Failure notifications can also be exported to third-party enterprise management tools such as Microsoft SCOM. 38 Failure detection and recovery provided by the virtual infrastructure back end. In addition, both the vWorkspace Client and Web Access Gateway seamlessly roll over to alternate connection brokers after a predetermined timeout in the event of connection-broker failure. Required Features Network Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Integrates with enterprise application delivery controllers ADCs from BlueCoat, Cisco, Citrix, Expand, F5, Juniper, and Radware integrate with XenDesktop infrastructure. ADCs from Citrix, F5, Cisco Systems, and Juniper are supported. Cisco Systems, Citrix Systems, and F5 Networks ADCs officially support VMware. 39 No. ADCs will interoperate with vWorkspace, but Quest does not publish a list of supported devices. Required Features Network (continued) Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Supports workplace productivity activities at reasonable bandwidth/late ncy XenDesktop 4.0 supports typical knowledge worker tasks at under 200Kbps bandwidth and latency in excess of 100 ms. Microsoft VDI Suite supports typical knowledge worker tasks at under 200Kbps bandwidth and 100 ms latency. View 4.5 with PCoIP supports typical knowledge worker tasks at less than 200 Kbps bandwidth and latency up to 100 ms. 40 Quest EOP supports typical knowledge worker tasks at under 200 Kbps bandwidth. Latency up to 160 ms is supported when the EOP Xtreme (WAN acceleration) feature is used and sufficient bandwidth is available. Without EOP Xtreme, RDP suffers when latency is > 30 ms. Required Features Network (continued) Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Offers dynamic traffic prioritization Prioritizes real-time traffic (screen, mouse, keyboard, and multimedia) ahead of file and print traffic, with autonomic adjustment in response to changes in latency and bandwidth. Tuning of bandwidth allocation (virtual channel prioritization) between display traffic and all other traffic (e.g., print, disk, clipboard and USB) is possible. Granular traffic (e.g., voice, file, human interface device, or print) prioritization is available via PCoIP’s virtual channels option. 41 Tuning of bandwidth allocation (virtual channel prioritization) between display traffic and all other traffic (e.g., print, disk, clipboard, and USB) is possible. Required Features Network (continued) Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Integrates with VPN appliances Citrix, F5, Juniper all support or fully integrate with XenDesktop Cisco and Juniper appliances, among others, are supported. Cisco and Juniper Networks appliances, among others, are supported. Provides a secure remote access gateway Citrix provides physical and virtual remote access gateway appliances as well as a Windows Server (2003 and 2008) based remote access gateway. Via Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Gateway (RDG). 42 Juniper Secure Access integration is supported. Other third-party VPN appliances will interoperate with vWorkspace, but Quest does not publish a specific list. Quest provides vWorkspace Secure-IT SSL VPN gateway. Implemented using the View Administrator “Security Server” installation option. Required Features Storage Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. Integrates with third-party array storage provisioning features XenServer and Hyper-V integrate with storage arrays from Compellent, EMC, Hitachi Data Systems, HP, NetApp and others through StorageLink component of Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V and Citrix Essentials for XenServer. StorageLink is included with XenDesktop, but has a separate interface. No. Requires thirdparty solutions such as Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V. 43 Provides direct support for vendor storage array provisioning technologies such as NetApp FlexClone volumes with Data ONTAP 7.3.1 or later. VMware View 4.5 Premier NetApp (using the integrated NetApp Rapid Cloning Utility [RCU] in VMware View Administrator) and EMC (using the Celerra plug-in for vCenter), among others. Required Features Storage (continued) Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Integrates with server virtualization platform storage provisioning features Thin-provisioned virtual disks are supported through the StorageLink component of Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V and Citrix Essentials for XenServer. vSphere support for is provided by VMware vCenter Server. Provides direct support for Microsoft Hyper-V differencing disks. vSphere thinprovisioned virtual disks and linked cloning are supported. 44 Provides direct support for VMware Linked Clones (with vCenter Server 2.5 or later and ESX 3.5 or later) and Microsoft Hyper-V differencing disks. Required Features Back End Virtual Infrastructure Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Hypervisor support for memory overcommit The supported VMware VI 3.x and vSphere 4.x hypervisors offer memory overcommit. Via Dynamic Memory in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. Support for 8:1 virtual CPU (vCPU) to physical CPU (pCPU) core oversubscription VMware vSphere 4.x hypervisor offers 20:1 oversubscription. Microsoft Hyper-V offers 8:1 oversubscription The supported VMware Infrastructure (VI) 3.x and vSphere 4.x hypervisors offer memory overcommit. 20:1 oversubscription is supported. The supported VMware Infrastructure (VI) 3.x and vSphere 4.x hypervisors offer memory overcommit. 8:1 vCPU VMware vSphere oversubscription is 4.x hypervisor offers supported. Microsoft 20:1 supports up to 512 oversubscription. vCPUs per Hyper-V Microsoft Hyper-V host and up to 64 offers 8:1 logical processors oversubscription. (physical processors Oversubscription is x cores x threads) not applicable to per host. Up to 384 Parallels Virtuozzo VMs are supported Containers. per physical host. 45 Required Features Management Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Management server runs on a mainstream x86 server OS Supports Windows Server 2003 SP 2 and Windows Server 2003 R2 Windows Server 2008 R2 The View Connection Server can be installed on Windows Server 2003 SP2 Standard or Enterprise (32-bit or 64-bit) and Windows Server 2008 (32-bit or 64bit) server OSs. 46 Supports Windows Server 2003 SP 2 and Windows Server 2003 R2 as well as Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Required Features Management (continued) Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Integration with enterprise management solutions Includes XenDesktop SDK; Windows PowerShell commandlets; SNMP support offered through Citrix EdgeSight and workflow automation and run book automation through Workflow Studio; XenDesktop includes support for Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008. Microsoft VDI Suites include use rights for System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM), System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) and System Center Operations Manager (SCOM). SNMP and WMI providers enable integration with third-party enterprise management solutions. View 4.5 includes a Microsoft SCOM management pack, Windows PowerShell commandlets, tools to harvest the View 4.5 relational database and export to commaseparated values (CSV)-formatted files, and a new application event stream. 47 No. Support for Microsoft Systems Center Operations Manager (SCOM) 2007 R2 is under development. Required Features Management (continued) Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. Management console supports up to 5,000 virtual desktops Scalability to 5,000 is supported. No. Microsoft Management console supports multiple concurrent users No fixed limit, console responsiveness may be reduced if a larger number of searches are conducted at the same time. There is no fixed limit to the number of concurrent administrators. recommends its joint solution with Citrix for scalability beyond hundreds of desktops. 48 VMware View 4.5 Premier Scalability to 5,000 is supported. Scalability to 10,000 managed virtual desktops is supported. No fixed limit to number of concurrent administrators. Quest has tested internally with 10 concurrent administrators. No logical limit exists, but VMware has tested internally with several dozen concurrent administrators. Required Features Management (continued) Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Policy-based management The XenDesktop policy engine manages session configuration. Four Windows Active Directory Group Policy Templates (GPTs) manage virtual desktop and endpoint configuration FarmGUID.adm, icaclient.adm, icaclient_usb.adm, vda_usb.adm. The Microsoft VDI Suite leverages Windows Group Policy Objects (GPOs) for centralized management of virtual desktops. View 4.5 Manager offers a policy engine in addition to five Windows AD GPTs. 49 vWorkspace makes limited use of rulesbased policies to apply administrator defined settings (e.g., session time zone assignment can be made based on AD group membership, organizational unit [OU] assignment, client device name, or IP address). Required Features Management (continued) Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Includes user, virtual desktop, and endpoint search capabilities Supports streamed and locally installed virtual applications Yes Yes Yes View Administrator includes a search tool. Locally installed applications are supported within XenDesktop. Streamed (and hosted) applications are supported through Citrix XenApp included in XenDesktop Enterprise and Platinum. App-V streamed applications can be deployed to virtual desktops, physical desktops, or published to serverbased computing (SBC). Applications can also be hosted separately from the SHVD image with Microsoft RemoteApp. Microsoft App-V streamed applications can be deployed to either virtual or physical desktops. VMware ThinApp included in VMware View Premier. ThinApp management is included in the View Administrator interface. 50 Required Features Management (continued) Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Flexible management of virtual desktop OS and application updates Locally installed application and OS updates are supported within XenDesktop. Streamed (and hosted) applications are supported through Citrix XenApp which is included in XenDesktop Enterprise and Platinum OS and application updates to persistent desktops can be made using SCCM to install MSI files or by leveraging Microsoft App-V. Updates to nonpersistent desktops can be made using Microsoft App-V. Provided via VMware Update Manager. 51 OS and application updates to persistent desktops can be made by using conventional distributed desktop management systems by using vWorkspace to install Microsoft Installer (MSI) files, or by leveraging Microsoft App-V. Updates to nonpersistent desktops can be made using Microsoft App-V. Required Features Management (continued) Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Command-line interface and scripting support Scripting is supported through the Citrix Desktop Delivery Controller PowerShell SDK. Provided via “Command Line Tool for View Manager.” Solution installation does not require vendor professional services Yes Comprehensive No scriptable interfaces are documented in the Remote Desktop Services reference and SCVMM scripting guide. Yes Yes 52 Yes Required Features Security Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Suite Premium Quest vWorkspace 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Directory services integration XenDesktop integrates with AD to manage virtual desktop access and perform management authentication. AD is also used as the primary mechanism to identify XenDesktop Desktop Delivery Controllers (DDC) through a dedicated OU. It is possible to deploy XenDesktop without creating a dedicated OU by hard coding the FQDN of each DDC into the registry. VDI Suite manages objects using Active Directory users group's and organizational units (OU), and for the assignment of delegated administration rights. vWorkspace manages objects using Active Directory (AD) users groups and OUs Offers clean AD integration by leveraging AD Application Mode (ADAM) on Windows Server 2003 domains and AD Lightweight Directory Services (LDS) on Windows Server 2008 domains. 53 Required Features Security (continued) Feature Citrix Microsoft VDI Quest XenDesktop 4 Suite Premium vWorkspace SP1 Plat. 7.1 Ent. Role-based access controls (RBACs) XenDesktop supports pre-built and custom user roles. RBACs and administrative delegation are assignable using Remote Desktop Services Manager permissions. 54 Supports customer role creation with granular control of permissions on all roles. VMware View 4.5 Premier Delegated administration and pre-defined roles (e.g., administrator or helpdesk) were added in View 4.5. Required Features Security (continued) Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. Client and management traffic is secured SSL/TLS and ICA/HDX Encryption (up to 128-bit) for client traffic. Supports SSL/TLS for XML based management traffic, but not Citrix Independent Management Architecture (IMA) traffic. All client and management traffic can be optionally secured using SSL or TLS encryption for the Web management service and IPsec for ODBC communications. 55 VMware View 4.5 Premier RDP and EOP client Via Hypertext communication can Transfer Protocol be secured using Secure (HTTPS). SSL or TLS encryption. Management traffic between the data collector and connection broker and among the data collector, administrative console, and backend virtual infrastructure can be encrypted using SSL. Required Features Security (continued) Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Security logging and auditing of administrative actions All configuration changes are logged. Feature added in SP 1. Supports standard remote access authentication protocols Supports PAP, CHAP, MS-CHAP v1, and MSCHAP v2 protocols. System Center Operations Manager includes audit collection services to gather and report on administrative actions. Kerberos-based credential passthrough is supported for AD domain remote clients. X.509 certification for access via the Remote Desktop Gateway using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) for Web Access. Event logging capabilities were updated in View 4.5 to provide an audit trail for all administrative actions. Delegated to AD, RSA SecurID, smart card (but not with PCoIP on Windows Vista or Windows 7), or Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate. 56 No Supports X.509 certification for access via SecureIT along with SSL and TLS for Web Access. Kerberosbased credential pass-through is supported for AD domain-joined remote clients. Required Features Guest OS Support Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Windows 7 (32-bit and 64bit) and Windows XP (32-bit) guest Yes Yes Yes - Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit) support was added in View 4.5. Yes 57 Required Features Licensing Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Offers a choice of the following models: Concurrent user Named user Concurrent No. Microsoft VDI Licensing offered Suites are licensed only with per-device. XenDesktop 4.0 VDI Edition Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. 58 Concurrent user (i.e., number of concurrent connections) is the default licensing model. Named users are counted as concurrent users. VMware View 4.5 Premier Concurrent user is the default licensing model. Named users (for local virtual desktops) are counted as concurrent users. Required Features Product Support Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Three-year minimum of market General support is available for four years from the product release date. Citrix recently updated policy to include all “nonsale” products (e.g., the ICA clients, Web Interface and Secure Gateway). Satisfied by general support. Citrix provides a minimum of 12 month’s notice for “End of Maintenance.” Mainstream support is available for five years from the product release date. No. General General support is available for three years from the product release date. Extended support is available for five years following the end of general support. 12 months of extended support is offered following expiration of general support One-year minimum of extended support 59 support is available for 12 months after the product release date. VMware defines extended support as “technical guidance,” which is available for two years following the end of general support. Required Features Product Support (continued) Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Published support lifecycle dates at product launch Support lifecycle dates are published on the “Product Matrix” web page. Support lifecycle information for each of the point products that comprise the VDI Suite is available at the web page “Lifecycle information for Microsoft Server products.” Support lifecycle dates are published on the “VMware Enterprise Desktop Support” webpage. 60 No. Quest has published the vWorkspace product life cycle for previous product releases, but has not yet published the full life cycle for vWorkspace 7.1 Required Features Third Party Vendor Support Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Certification program for third-party application vendors See the “Citrix Ready Program Guide“ for details. Certified products are listed in the “Citrix Ready Product Listing”. As above. See the Microsoft Windows 7 Compatibility Center site and Windows Server Developer Center for program details. No. A technology See the VMware site “VMware Ready for Applications” Microsoft provides guidelines for vendors looking to develop thin-client hardware, and offers a certification program for vendors that ship the Windows 7 Embedded OS. Certified devices are listed in “Quest vWorkspace—Thin Client support.” Certification program for thin client vendors 61 partner alliance program is under development. See the “VMware Ready Hardware Certification Program.” Certified vendors are listed in the VMware Compatibility Guide. Required Features Third Party Vendor Support (continued) Feature Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 Plat. Microsoft VDI Quest Suite vWorkspace Premium 7.1 Ent. VMware View 4.5 Premier Public user forum for discussion of application support issues See the Citrix “XenDesktop” Forum and the Citrix “XenDesktop Developer Network”. A community verified program is also available “Citrix Ready Community Verified. The Microsoft Forums site is available for discussion of all Microsoft products. See the VMware community “VMware View (with View Manager)” and the “ThinApp Community Portal.” 62 No. The Quest My SupportLink site (registration required) is available for support of all Quest products but does not provide a discussion forum. Conclusion 63 Conclusion • VMware View 4.5 and Citrix XenDesktop 4 SP1 are the only enterprise-ready SHVD platforms • Quest vWorkspace and Microsoft VDI are suitable for small business and department-level deployments • Third party add-ons may be deployed to satisfy existing feature shortcomings • Management scalability meets today’s requirements, but more work remains • You know what you need better than anyone! 64 Additional Information • Server-hosted Virtual Desktops http://www.burtongroup.com/Client/Research/Document.aspx?cid=1874 • Server-hosted Virtual Desktop Profile: VMware View 4.0.1 http://www.burtongroup.com/Client/Research/Document.aspx?cid=2079 • Server-hosted Virtual Desktop Profile: Citrix XenDesktop 4 Platinum SP1 http://www.burtongroup.com/Client/Research/Document.aspx?cid=1982 • Server-hosted Virtual Desktop Profile: Quest vWorkspace 7.1 Enterprise http://www.burtongroup.com/Client/Research/Document.aspx?cid=2089 • Virtual Desktop and Application Delivery reference architecture template http://www.burtongroup.com/Client/Research/Document.aspx?cid=1775 65