{"id":1271,"date":"2016-05-05T14:52:52","date_gmt":"2016-05-05T20:52:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.RiptideHosting.com\/blog\/?p=1271"},"modified":"2019-10-18T15:34:05","modified_gmt":"2019-10-18T15:34:05","slug":"vdi-desktop-as-a-service-daas-hosted-desktop-and-remote-desktop-hosting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.RiptideHosting.com\/blog\/vdi-desktop-as-a-service-daas-hosted-desktop-and-remote-desktop-hosting\/","title":{"rendered":"VDI, Desktop as a Service (DaaS), Hosted Desktop and Remote Desktop Hosting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary –<\/strong> Hosting desktops in the cloud goes by many names and can be setup in several methods depending on your needs.\u00a0 As you can see below, some setups can be costly from a Microsoft licensing perspective and some setups are better if you wish to share applications among users or alternatively have a completely isolated virtual machine for each user.\u00a0 As a hosting provider in the Microsoft SPLA program, Riptide Hosting can provide Windows Server and Remote Desktop Services (RDS) user licenses but not Windows Desktop (Windows 7,8,10) licensing.\u00a0 In the discussion below, you will see that Windows Server with RDS for individual user desktop sessions can be a very cost effective solution to provide users with a customizable desktop session and ability to share applications between users.<\/p>\n

Method 1: Remote Desktop Services on Windows Server<\/strong> \u2013 You can utilize a Windows Server OS (2008r2\/2012r2) with Remote Desktop Services (RDS) to provide each user their own customizable desktop session.\u00a0 Applications such as an access databases, accounting applications, business software, and MS Office can be installed on the server once and accessible by each user session simultaneously.\u00a0 Users have access to both a private folder (i.e. my documents) and apublic folder to easily share documents between users.\u00a0 The Desktop Experience feature can be installed to make Windows Server 2012R2 look like Windows 8.1 (or on Server 2008 R2 to look like Windows 7).\u00a0 A Remote Desktop server is often the cheapest method for providing desktop sessions.\u00a0 At Riptide, a VM with licensing for Windows 2012R2 starts at $90 plus RDS user licenses at $7.75 each.<\/p>\n

Method 2: Windows VMs with Desktop OS 7, 8.1, 10<\/strong> \u2013 Windows desktop licenses are not available in the SPLA program so hosting providers like Riptide cannot provide these licenses although you may be able to utilize your own licensing.\u00a0 Windows 7, 8.1, and 10 cannot be used as a Remote Desktop Session Host like Windows Server can be.\u00a0 If you are looking to provide individual (isolated) VMs to each user with a Windows Desktop OS, an option is to use one of our Dedicated Servers upon which to install your own Volume Licensed version of Windows 2012R2 Server OS along with the \u201cvirtual machine based desktop\u201d deployment method of RDS where each hyper-V VM utilizes a desktop OS.\u00a0 Licensing in this scenario requires that each user or device accessing the VM have either the Windows Desktop Enterprise License with Software Assurance or a Windows Virtual Desktop Access (VDA) license.\u00a0 VDA device licenses are approximately $100\/device\/year.\u00a0 Many users do not have the Windows Enterprise license because it is available in Volume Licensing and not OEM\/Retail and requires Windows Professional or better.\u00a0 Typically this is much more costly or cost prohibitive versus method 1 above. \u00a0The rights to utilize the Desktop OS VM cease when either the Software Assurance or VDA license expires. For a client to use their own Volume Licensing, it must be on a fully Dedicated Server and must have the proper type of licensing.\u00a0 Here is a link to a good article on Microsoft licensing: https:\/\/community.spiceworks.com\/how_to\/124053-licensing-windows-10-with-virtualization-technologies-how-to<\/a><\/p>\n

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Method 3: individual VMs on Windows Server OS<\/strong> \u2013 if you want isolated VMs without the ability to share programs\/documents between users, another option is to use Windows Server with individual hyper-V VMs with a Server OS instead of a desktop OS.\u00a0 This would allow you to license the underlying host machine\/server with Windows Server Datacenter licensing which provides unlimited VMs on a server OS.\u00a0 In some cases this would be cheaper than method 2 above but almost certainly more expensive than Method 1 of Windows Server with RDS desktop sessions.<\/p>\n

Things to think about:<\/strong><\/p>\n