VDI Options - Modernization
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@dashrender said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
I get what ya'll are saying but thats just not how it is here. My options are replace what is there with new, or keep what is there and let it grow older.
I'll keep looking at options on my own, but thanks folks.
I'm lost - why are you bailing on this thread because one person said VDI is not how you should be moving forward? Other options were presented.
I don't see value in discussing why we have a VDI. The fact is we do and that will not be changing. Being told 'grumble grumble' that is not how to do it 'grumble grumble' is of no help to me. Regardless of what it does, VDI is staying. My options are keep the old stuff and hope it works for another 5 years until the next cycle, or use the budget I have to replace it for a new VDI stack. The project is not to asses the needs of requiring VDI, but to replace the VDI with a new VDI.
Most of the comments on the thread do not help with that so I gave up with it. Sure, if the project was 'get rid of VD' - but its not.
Somebody suggested Azure VDI, will take a look at that and keep looking at other options.
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@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
Somebody suggested Azure VDI, will take a look at that and keep looking at other options.
yep - that was me.
M365 Business Premium also includes some type of VDI - though I haven't dug into it so I don't know the details.
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@dashrender said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
Somebody suggested Azure VDI, will take a look at that and keep looking at other options.
yep - that was me.
M365 Business Premium also includes some type of VDI - though I haven't dug into it so I don't know the details.
Thank you, will take a look. I was hoping for things like this, thank you.
I was hoping for lots of comments with options like this, or other vendors, or to be told - hey, Citrix is still a great option, or any interesting VDI platforms to look at. Not, hey, don't do that project you do have, and do this other one instead. The reality is my project is replace VDI with VDI. Not, remove VDI.
Either way, thank you all.
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@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
I get what ya'll are saying but thats just not how it is here. My options are replace what is there with new, or keep what is there and let it grow older.
I'll keep looking at options on my own, but thanks folks.
If you just want to buy a solution without doing your homework to figure out what's right for the business, just get new servers and keep paying the crazy license fees for VMWare/Citrix (I'm assuming you've got the HA VMWare license.)
Without knowing what apps are running in the VDI, all we can do is generalize.
Are you stuck with VMWare and/or Citrix because of management? Big cost savings in moving away from those, even if you keep paying for support IE: Scale or Starwind
More details would be needed to make any solid recommendations.
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@travisdh1 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
I get what ya'll are saying but thats just not how it is here. My options are replace what is there with new, or keep what is there and let it grow older.
I'll keep looking at options on my own, but thanks folks.
If you just want to buy a solution without doing your homework to figure out what's right for the business, just get new servers and keep paying the crazy license fees for VMWare/Citrix (I'm assuming you've got the HA VMWare license.)
Without knowing what apps are running in the VDI, all we can do is generalize.
Are you stuck with VMWare and/or Citrix because of management? Big cost savings in moving away from those, even if you keep paying for support IE: Scale or Starwind
More details would be needed to make any solid recommendations.
It doesn't sound like he's in charge. Those in charge have already told him what to do - upgrade the current solution without changing the principal of the solution.
So while we could keep beating a dead horse here - that will go on deaf ears.
The reality is there is little to no presence of anyone using VDI on these forums - so there's no one here to make any recommendations to such.
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@travisdh1 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
I get what ya'll are saying but thats just not how it is here. My options are replace what is there with new, or keep what is there and let it grow older.
I'll keep looking at options on my own, but thanks folks.
If you just want to buy a solution without doing your homework to figure out what's right for the business, just get new servers and keep paying the crazy license fees for VMWare/Citrix (I'm assuming you've got the HA VMWare license.)
Without knowing what apps are running in the VDI, all we can do is generalize.
Are you stuck with VMWare and/or Citrix because of management? Big cost savings in moving away from those, even if you keep paying for support IE: Scale or Starwind
More details would be needed to make any solid recommendations.
I am more than capable of being able to appraise solutions to meet our business needs. My question was asking for a list of solutions "What would you suggest we look at?", not to be told to not look at VDI as its wrong. I'll decide that. I was hoping the community could point me to solutions, vendors, resources which you have used and had experience of. I see the people on here as experienced so wanted to ask here, I should have just looked at g2.
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@dashrender said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@travisdh1 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
I get what ya'll are saying but thats just not how it is here. My options are replace what is there with new, or keep what is there and let it grow older.
I'll keep looking at options on my own, but thanks folks.
If you just want to buy a solution without doing your homework to figure out what's right for the business, just get new servers and keep paying the crazy license fees for VMWare/Citrix (I'm assuming you've got the HA VMWare license.)
Without knowing what apps are running in the VDI, all we can do is generalize.
Are you stuck with VMWare and/or Citrix because of management? Big cost savings in moving away from those, even if you keep paying for support IE: Scale or Starwind
More details would be needed to make any solid recommendations.
It doesn't sound like he's in charge. Those in charge have already told him what to do - upgrade the current solution without changing the principal of the solution.
So while we could keep beating a dead horse here - that will go on deaf ears.
The reality is there is little to no presence of anyone using VDI on these forums - so there's no one here to make any recommendations to such.
That makes sense, thank you.
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@jimmy9008 We have a use case involving a legacy client/server app that we've determined we're going to have to go VDI for in order to secure it. One lousy app for approx 5 users that I hope we eventually move away from. We are currently reviewing Azure VDI for this and it so far will fit the bill though we had to go throught a lot of "hoops" to configure networking, VPN back into our infrastructure, etc. We have not yet presented budget numbers to the bean counters but Im hoping when we do they will see the $$$$$ wasted for 5 users and will force them to a new product.
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@jt1001001 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@jimmy9008 We have a use case involving a legacy client/server app that we've determined we're going to have to go VDI for in order to secure it. One lousy app for approx 5 users that I hope we eventually move away from. We are currently reviewing Azure VDI for this and it so far will fit the bill though we had to go throught a lot of "hoops" to configure networking, VPN back into our infrastructure, etc. We have not yet presented budget numbers to the bean counters but Im hoping when we do they will see the $$$$$ wasted for 5 users and will force them to a new product.
What other products do you plan to look at? Still VDI or something else? Any experience of VMWare Horizon?
We have around 600 - 1000 users globally (mostly developers) on the VDI I need to replace. The company dictates that the VDI must be in the same datacenter as the rest of the developers environments, so I don't think Azure VDI would work for us because of that mandate.
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Just had a very quick look at Azure Virtual Desktop and the calculator for 3 years up-front shows around 1.5m usd. Were looing upper limit of 1m usd, which would cover us for the next 5-7 years, making Azure look expensive.
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So FWIW, my previous gig (changed 3 weeks ago) was full on VDI for the office workers.
Without getting into anything that could risk confidentiality here's what was working and was being built on....
Citrix VDI infrastructure (Netscaler, storefront, director etc)
Non-persistent VDI
Nutanix hosts (clustered) with their AHV hypervisor
User profiles managed with Citrix Profile management on dedicated profile serversThere's much more detail that could be explored, but those are the main elements of the 3rd iteration of VDI.
Not sure if the option of Windows / Azure / cloud VDI makes sense unless your workload is in the could as well. Assuming that the main reason that you need / want VDI is to keep the endpoints near your ERP or workload so having the VDI off-site would defeat the purpose and probably cost an arm and a leg.
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Has VMware + VMware Horizon View been considered?
If what you have is working well and you can't find any decent competitors, why not consider just staying with your current setup and making sure you are on the latest VMware and Citrix versions?
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@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@travisdh1 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
I get what ya'll are saying but thats just not how it is here. My options are replace what is there with new, or keep what is there and let it grow older.
I'll keep looking at options on my own, but thanks folks.
If you just want to buy a solution without doing your homework to figure out what's right for the business, just get new servers and keep paying the crazy license fees for VMWare/Citrix (I'm assuming you've got the HA VMWare license.)
Without knowing what apps are running in the VDI, all we can do is generalize.
Are you stuck with VMWare and/or Citrix because of management? Big cost savings in moving away from those, even if you keep paying for support IE: Scale or Starwind
More details would be needed to make any solid recommendations.
I am more than capable of being able to appraise solutions to meet our business needs. My question was asking for a list of solutions "What would you suggest we look at?", not to be told to not look at VDI as its wrong. I'll decide that. I was hoping the community could point me to solutions, vendors, resources which you have used and had experience of. I see the people on here as experienced so wanted to ask here, I should have just looked at g2.
Well, I think @scottalanmiller already explained much better than I ever could that VDI Modernization is a contradiction in terms. If you're stuck using VDI, then you by definition are not modernizing.
As to different platforms to run it on, that's why I suggested Scale or Starwind to run the Citrix solution.
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@jimmy9008 We in I-T want the app to go away. For only 5 users we pretty much ruled out Citrix from the start and VmWare really isn't a great solution for only 5 users though my co-worker is pricing it out. We're hoping once c level sees teh cost of either solution they'll say no and we'll come up with a different app to use.
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@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@jt1001001 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@jimmy9008 We have a use case involving a legacy client/server app that we've determined we're going to have to go VDI for in order to secure it. One lousy app for approx 5 users that I hope we eventually move away from. We are currently reviewing Azure VDI for this and it so far will fit the bill though we had to go throught a lot of "hoops" to configure networking, VPN back into our infrastructure, etc. We have not yet presented budget numbers to the bean counters but Im hoping when we do they will see the $$$$$ wasted for 5 users and will force them to a new product.
What other products do you plan to look at? Still VDI or something else? Any experience of VMWare Horizon?
We have around 600 - 1000 users globally (mostly developers) on the VDI I need to replace. The company dictates that the VDI must be in the same datacenter as the rest of the developers environments, so I don't think Azure VDI would work for us because of that mandate.
If you have a solution that works, and at the moment VDI is a must, then it makes no sense to change the fundamentals of what you already have. That's just an unwarranted risk.
So keep Citrix and VMware as is. Just replace the hardware and consolidate it. You are only averaging 16 cores per physical server and 370GB RAM per server if my math is correct. You could easily cram 3 to 8 times as much into each server. 128 cores per server is nothing special today as well as several TBs of RAM. AMD is the leader and the way to go.
You could replace your 20 servers and have 384 cores and up to 12TB of RAM with only three Dell R6525 or R7525 dual CPU servers. You might want 4 or more though. But no need to go to blades when you only need a couple of servers. No need for complex hypervisor management solutions either when you only have a couple of servers.
Use vSAN instead of SAN for the VDI. With the proper drives these servers are certified for ESXi and vSAN. You should use U2 NVMe drives and avoid SAS. It will outperform your old SAN - by a lot.
Since you have 1 PB of data, storage for non-VDI workloads needs to be researched. I think I would want to separate VDI from the rest. Gut feeling would be to have completely separate physical environments for everything VDI related and the rest. Consolidation is good but overconsolidation can be too risky.
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@travisdh1 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@travisdh1 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
I get what ya'll are saying but thats just not how it is here. My options are replace what is there with new, or keep what is there and let it grow older.
I'll keep looking at options on my own, but thanks folks.
If you just want to buy a solution without doing your homework to figure out what's right for the business, just get new servers and keep paying the crazy license fees for VMWare/Citrix (I'm assuming you've got the HA VMWare license.)
Without knowing what apps are running in the VDI, all we can do is generalize.
Are you stuck with VMWare and/or Citrix because of management? Big cost savings in moving away from those, even if you keep paying for support IE: Scale or Starwind
More details would be needed to make any solid recommendations.
I am more than capable of being able to appraise solutions to meet our business needs. My question was asking for a list of solutions "What would you suggest we look at?", not to be told to not look at VDI as its wrong. I'll decide that. I was hoping the community could point me to solutions, vendors, resources which you have used and had experience of. I see the people on here as experienced so wanted to ask here, I should have just looked at g2.
Well, I think @scottalanmiller already explained much better than I ever could that VDI Modernization is a contradiction in terms. If you're stuck using VDI, then you by definition are not modernizing.
As to different platforms to run it on, that's why I suggested Scale or Starwind to run the Citrix solution.
Oh come on, seriously. How on earth is that a contradiction in terms. I like this forum but some time people on it can be ridiculous with rubbish like that. You can modernize many things in a wide range of ways and saying that a 'VDI cannot be modernized' as that is not how you think something should be done is just pure rubbish.
You are running Windows Server 2008r2, and are considering migrating to Windows Server 2022!... that is not modernizing... your workload should be SaaS/Cloud! Yeah, BS. You can modernize without being SaaS/Online services.
Oh! You want to modernize and move from HDD/Spinners to NVMe... well tough luck, you cant modernize like that dumbass... your storage should be a blob in Azure.. Local storage, pfft. No way is that 'modern' anymore!
You want tomodernize your compute and use PMEM. Oh shoot! That cant be modernized as you should be using a VM in AWS. BS!
You can take outdated infrastructure and modernize it in many ways - just because ya'll believe in narrow minded dogmatic BS like 'my way is the right way' you think this is a contradiction in terms. LOL. WOW.
You can take old VDI infrastructure and modernize it. Contradiction my ass! If this is what I can expect from this forum I may as well post on Spiceworks. Gosh.
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@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@travisdh1 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@travisdh1 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
I get what ya'll are saying but thats just not how it is here. My options are replace what is there with new, or keep what is there and let it grow older.
I'll keep looking at options on my own, but thanks folks.
If you just want to buy a solution without doing your homework to figure out what's right for the business, just get new servers and keep paying the crazy license fees for VMWare/Citrix (I'm assuming you've got the HA VMWare license.)
Without knowing what apps are running in the VDI, all we can do is generalize.
Are you stuck with VMWare and/or Citrix because of management? Big cost savings in moving away from those, even if you keep paying for support IE: Scale or Starwind
More details would be needed to make any solid recommendations.
I am more than capable of being able to appraise solutions to meet our business needs. My question was asking for a list of solutions "What would you suggest we look at?", not to be told to not look at VDI as its wrong. I'll decide that. I was hoping the community could point me to solutions, vendors, resources which you have used and had experience of. I see the people on here as experienced so wanted to ask here, I should have just looked at g2.
Well, I think @scottalanmiller already explained much better than I ever could that VDI Modernization is a contradiction in terms. If you're stuck using VDI, then you by definition are not modernizing.
As to different platforms to run it on, that's why I suggested Scale or Starwind to run the Citrix solution.
Oh come on, seriously. How on earth is that a contradiction in terms. I like this forum but some time people on it can be ridiculous with rubbish like that. You can modernize many things in a wide range of ways and saying that a 'VDI cannot be modernized' as that is not how you think something should be done is just pure rubbish.
You are running Windows Server 2008r2, and are considering migrating to Windows Server 2022!... that is not modernizing... your workload should be SaaS/Cloud! Yeah, BS. You can modernize without being SaaS/Online services.
Oh! You want to modernize and move from HDD/Spinners to NVMe... well tough luck, you cant modernize like that dumbass... your storage should be a blob in Azure.. Local storage, pfft. No way is that 'modern' anymore!
You want tomodernize your compute and use PMEM. Oh shoot! That cant be modernized as you should be using a VM in AWS. BS!
You can take outdated infrastructure and modernize it in many ways - just because ya'll believe in narrow minded dogmatic BS like 'my way is the right way' you think this is a contradiction in terms. LOL. WOW.
You can take old VDI infrastructure and modernize it. Contradiction my ass! If this is what I can expect from this forum I may as well post on Spiceworks. Gosh.
So, are you even considering basing things on Scale or Starwind as your underlying solution, or are we just ignoring half of what I say?
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@travisdh1 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@travisdh1 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@travisdh1 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
I get what ya'll are saying but thats just not how it is here. My options are replace what is there with new, or keep what is there and let it grow older.
I'll keep looking at options on my own, but thanks folks.
If you just want to buy a solution without doing your homework to figure out what's right for the business, just get new servers and keep paying the crazy license fees for VMWare/Citrix (I'm assuming you've got the HA VMWare license.)
Without knowing what apps are running in the VDI, all we can do is generalize.
Are you stuck with VMWare and/or Citrix because of management? Big cost savings in moving away from those, even if you keep paying for support IE: Scale or Starwind
More details would be needed to make any solid recommendations.
I am more than capable of being able to appraise solutions to meet our business needs. My question was asking for a list of solutions "What would you suggest we look at?", not to be told to not look at VDI as its wrong. I'll decide that. I was hoping the community could point me to solutions, vendors, resources which you have used and had experience of. I see the people on here as experienced so wanted to ask here, I should have just looked at g2.
Well, I think @scottalanmiller already explained much better than I ever could that VDI Modernization is a contradiction in terms. If you're stuck using VDI, then you by definition are not modernizing.
As to different platforms to run it on, that's why I suggested Scale or Starwind to run the Citrix solution.
Oh come on, seriously. How on earth is that a contradiction in terms. I like this forum but some time people on it can be ridiculous with rubbish like that. You can modernize many things in a wide range of ways and saying that a 'VDI cannot be modernized' as that is not how you think something should be done is just pure rubbish.
You are running Windows Server 2008r2, and are considering migrating to Windows Server 2022!... that is not modernizing... your workload should be SaaS/Cloud! Yeah, BS. You can modernize without being SaaS/Online services.
Oh! You want to modernize and move from HDD/Spinners to NVMe... well tough luck, you cant modernize like that dumbass... your storage should be a blob in Azure.. Local storage, pfft. No way is that 'modern' anymore!
You want tomodernize your compute and use PMEM. Oh shoot! That cant be modernized as you should be using a VM in AWS. BS!
You can take outdated infrastructure and modernize it in many ways - just because ya'll believe in narrow minded dogmatic BS like 'my way is the right way' you think this is a contradiction in terms. LOL. WOW.
You can take old VDI infrastructure and modernize it. Contradiction my ass! If this is what I can expect from this forum I may as well post on Spiceworks. Gosh.
So, are you even considering basing things on Scale or Starwind as your underlying solution, or are we just ignoring half of what I say?
If you're serious about checking out other platforms, I can vouch for Scale. I had them at my last job, and they now have two x 3 node clusters and the guys there are extremely happy with it.
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@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@jt1001001 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@jimmy9008 We have a use case involving a legacy client/server app that we've determined we're going to have to go VDI for in order to secure it. One lousy app for approx 5 users that I hope we eventually move away from. We are currently reviewing Azure VDI for this and it so far will fit the bill though we had to go throught a lot of "hoops" to configure networking, VPN back into our infrastructure, etc. We have not yet presented budget numbers to the bean counters but Im hoping when we do they will see the $$$$$ wasted for 5 users and will force them to a new product.
What other products do you plan to look at? Still VDI or something else? Any experience of VMWare Horizon?
We have around 600 - 1000 users globally (mostly developers) on the VDI I need to replace. The company dictates that the VDI must be in the same datacenter as the rest of the developers environments, so I don't think Azure VDI would work for us because of that mandate.
I know this isn't VDI, but what about something like GitPod, Eclipse Che, Coder, etc? In everyone's defense, developing over VDI truly sucks. This would keep the development environments in the same data center, but would give a much better experience.
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@travisdh1 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@travisdh1 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@travisdh1 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
@jimmy9008 said in VDI Options - Modernization:
I get what ya'll are saying but thats just not how it is here. My options are replace what is there with new, or keep what is there and let it grow older.
I'll keep looking at options on my own, but thanks folks.
If you just want to buy a solution without doing your homework to figure out what's right for the business, just get new servers and keep paying the crazy license fees for VMWare/Citrix (I'm assuming you've got the HA VMWare license.)
Without knowing what apps are running in the VDI, all we can do is generalize.
Are you stuck with VMWare and/or Citrix because of management? Big cost savings in moving away from those, even if you keep paying for support IE: Scale or Starwind
More details would be needed to make any solid recommendations.
I am more than capable of being able to appraise solutions to meet our business needs. My question was asking for a list of solutions "What would you suggest we look at?", not to be told to not look at VDI as its wrong. I'll decide that. I was hoping the community could point me to solutions, vendors, resources which you have used and had experience of. I see the people on here as experienced so wanted to ask here, I should have just looked at g2.
Well, I think @scottalanmiller already explained much better than I ever could that VDI Modernization is a contradiction in terms. If you're stuck using VDI, then you by definition are not modernizing.
As to different platforms to run it on, that's why I suggested Scale or Starwind to run the Citrix solution.
Oh come on, seriously. How on earth is that a contradiction in terms. I like this forum but some time people on it can be ridiculous with rubbish like that. You can modernize many things in a wide range of ways and saying that a 'VDI cannot be modernized' as that is not how you think something should be done is just pure rubbish.
You are running Windows Server 2008r2, and are considering migrating to Windows Server 2022!... that is not modernizing... your workload should be SaaS/Cloud! Yeah, BS. You can modernize without being SaaS/Online services.
Oh! You want to modernize and move from HDD/Spinners to NVMe... well tough luck, you cant modernize like that dumbass... your storage should be a blob in Azure.. Local storage, pfft. No way is that 'modern' anymore!
You want tomodernize your compute and use PMEM. Oh shoot! That cant be modernized as you should be using a VM in AWS. BS!
You can take outdated infrastructure and modernize it in many ways - just because ya'll believe in narrow minded dogmatic BS like 'my way is the right way' you think this is a contradiction in terms. LOL. WOW.
You can take old VDI infrastructure and modernize it. Contradiction my ass! If this is what I can expect from this forum I may as well post on Spiceworks. Gosh.
So, are you even considering basing things on Scale or Starwind as your underlying solution, or are we just ignoring half of what I say?
I’ll take a look at Starwind, but not Scale. Unless I am mistaken Scale do not use ESXi as the hypervisor layer. Don’t they use KVM? I didn’t write previously but we have to stay standardized to VMWare. That would remove Scale as an option.
For Starwind, I do not see a specific VDI product. The site seems to say they can build for VDI, but it feels a bit ‘Mum and Dad’ shop. The highest model stack listed, well the one on their site, seems a lot smaller than we would need.
Compare that to the VXRail, they have a specific VXRail for VDI which tells me a lot more information such as how many VDI sessions can be concurrently supported, how large it can scale, how many GPUs can be supported by each node. I can also find very specific reviews about VXRail VDI where Starwind reviews are generic about the HCA. Yes, I know they are retrofitting their HCA to be for VDI - but that’s not the same as seeing specific reviews about purely being VDI.
Edit - I do actually use Starwind now in production for vSAN storage, it works well, but not quite sure I’d want to pull the trigger on a HCA from them.
