Everything That There Is To Know About VDI Licensing with Windows
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@FATeknollogee said:
What is Linux desktop VDI?
I assume there's no way to run a Windows app using the Linux VDI mechanism?VDI just means a one to one virtualized system rather than a shared one.
Shared is terminal servers (many users to one OS.)
VDI is one user per OS.
So you can do either model with any OS you want. Windows terminal server is called RDS. All Linux are terminal servers out of the box. You can do VDI with Linux just as you can with Windows, it's identical.
Using Linux as your desktop does not allow you to run Windows apps. It's a Linux desktop, same as using a Linux desktop anywhere.
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@NTG has multiple terminal servers, all Linux.
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If your application is Windows only, then you're kinda "stuck" with MS...
OTOH, if your app will install in Windows or Linux, one would have a lot more to choose from. -
@FATeknollogee said:
If your application is Windows only, then you're kinda "stuck" with MS...
You can always choose to change the application. While painful, it is often the better solution.
Especially as nearly any application that requires a specific OS isn't just unnecessarily expensive or limiting, but having an OS dependency means it is mired in a 1990s and older software design paradigm. Modern business software made even since the mid-1990s only very rarely has OS dependencies. That's quite literally a DOS-era problem.
There are exceptions to this, but they are very rare. Nearly all "stuck on Windows" problems are caused by archaic software and companies that are happy to use software that doesn't come up to incredibly low standards.
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@scottalanmiller said:
There are exceptions to this, but they are very rare. Nearly all "stuck on Windows" problems are caused by archaic software and companies that are happy to use software that doesn't come up to incredibly low standards.
Unfortunately, there's a boatload of the "stuck on Windows" type apps
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@FATeknollogee said:
Unfortunately, there's a boatload of the "stuck on Windows" type apps
There are, of course. But that apps are stuck on Windows doesn't mean that a company should be. The question becomes... why is the company stuck on those apps?
Think of the cost involved. It isn't Windows, that's one aspect, but the same bad software that causes this to happen is likely causing lots of other issues. And is there support? If the app is supported, why isn't it getting moved to a modern design (it's been two decades, the buffer period for excuses is really over.)
There are special cases, of course. But it's pretty rare that I find companies actually stuck. Maybe the software makes sense, maybe it doesn't. But the notion of being stuck on Windows I find to generally not be the case. It's more that companies don't want to face the pain of moving.
And that pain of change is why Microsoft keeps the prices high - because companies would rather pay a bounty there than to bother rethinking how they do things.
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I hear you.
I've got some clients with medical apps tied to hardware (scopes). Software is available 1000% as Windows only.
It would be nice to have the option of "moving" to a more open form of O/S -
@FATeknollogee said:
I hear you.
I've got some clients with medical apps tied to hardware (scopes). Software is available 1000% as Windows only.
It would be nice to have the option of "moving" to a more open form of O/SWhat type of software is it?
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@scottalanmiller said:
Especially as nearly any application that requires a specific OS isn't just unnecessarily expensive or limiting, but having an OS dependency means it is mired in a 1990s and older software design paradigm. Modern business software made even since the mid-1990s only very rarely has OS dependencies. That's quite literally a DOS-era problem.
What? I'd say the majority of software is only available on Windows (and Mac) and I can't see that changing any time soon.
@scottalanmiller said:
There are exceptions to this, but they are very rare. Nearly all "stuck on Windows" problems are caused by archaic software and companies that are happy to use software that doesn't come up to incredibly low standards.
Incredibly low standards? I have no idea what you're talking about? I can't see the point of a software house developing non-Windows versions of its applications when Windows is an awesome OS that 99% of it's customer base is more than happy to use.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
What? I'd say the majority of software is only available on Windows (and Mac) and I can't see that changing any time soon.
Talking serious business software here. Yes the majority is Windows only, but the majority is not something you would want running in a business.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Incredibly low standards? I have no idea what you're talking about? I can't see the point of a software house developing non-Windows versions of its applications when Windows is an awesome OS that 99% of it's customer base is more than happy to use.
The point is because making something Windows-centric means that the software is bad for reasons other than the ones that you are assuming. Why would business software (outside of hardware controllers and sensors) run on a desktop at all. In a home, sure. In a business?
There are special cases (Adobe processing products) but how much software are people installing on desktops? How much should they be?
And since developing cross platform is no more work than developing for Windows, why would you lock your customers to spending money with MS when they could be spending that money with you? Why would you not want the largest possible user base for the same effort?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
....when Windows is an awesome OS that 99% of it's customer base is more than happy to use.
Here is what people miss. You are correct. 99% of their customers run Windows. Not 99% of their potential customers. They define who their customers are then in circular reasoning point to this fact as the reason that they don't need to make better software.
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Two things that people miss...
- This whole portion of this thread is about how ridiculously expensive Windows is to run. It's crazy. We talk about all this money and all this licensing overhead. And then when a free, easier to run, alternative is presented its... everyone is happy to run Windows. To say this means we are ignoring the whole conversation that led us here.
- It's not a desire to not run Windows, it's a desire for quality software. Why would good software, in most cases, run on a desktop? Why is it being designed like it is 1990? Talking business software here, not games or special cases needing heavy desktop GPU processing.
Nearly all business software should be running on a server and not on a desktop. That something is Windows only should be a red flag because of both architectural and programmer laziness (or ineptitude) concerns, not because it is Windows.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Incredibly low standards? I have no idea what you're talking about?
Even in the Microsoft world, writing business software that required the desktop was against their better practices going back in the 1990s. Microsoft was pushing for system agnosticism and good design like everyone else.
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And additionally, we are talking about apps requiring Windows desktops, not Windows servers. So this additionally means that someone wrote an app that can't run on a Windows server, because non-Windows desktops can consume that software. So we are talking problems with Windows compatibility of the software itself. The stuff that cannot be run on RDS or XenApp.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Nearly all business software should be running on a server and not on a desktop
Why? None of the software I use is.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Nearly all business software should be running on a server and not on a desktop
Why? None of the software I use is.
Are you a business user or IT? Are you a special case within the environment?
That said, I work in IT, and nothing needs to run on my desktop. Literally not one thing.
Do you need to install software that you use? Do you need to back up your desktop? Do you have to secure hardware? Can you move to whatever OS you need whenever you need? Can you share data transparently in a multi-user environment with your coworkers? Can you run VDI without VDI costs? Can you run a terminal server for your apps with zero licensing concerns? Can you use Chromebooks for your work?
If not, are those not potential places where you are either business limited or spending extra money to install those apps on the desktop? What kinds of software do you use that install locally?
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Given the length of the post, I hope no one assumes that I wrote the article on good system administration practices involving no custom installed tools is related to this discussion. That was written mostly yesterday and I've been polishing it up this morning. It's unrelated to this discussion, but the timing was suspicious so felt that I should mention it.
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@scottalanmiller said:
What kinds of software do you use that install locally?
MS Office
Visual Studio
Autodesk PDS
Adobe CS
MS Dynamics ERP -
@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
What kinds of software do you use that install locally?
MS Office
Visual Studio
Autodesk PDS
Adobe CS
MS Dynamics ERPAutodesk and Adobe are what I would call special case software. Adobe a little less, Autodesk quite a bit. Very heavy local processing. Neither is normal business software, but are design software. Not that businesses don't run them, but they are generally for specific roles and not general business software. You would normally expect only engineers to have Autodesk needs and only designers to have Adobe CS ones, for example. You don't expect secretaries, factory floor workers, IT, managers and such to have use for those tools by and large.
MS Office is a good example of a middle ground. Yes, MS Office officially only runs on Windows and Mac. But it is commonly run on Linux. And you don't need it installed. You CAN choose to install it locally, and since you have Windows desktops already you might choose to do so. But even if you need MS Office rather than another tool you can use the online version of it (I do, works fine from any OS) or you can use it via RDS or XenApp (works great and is designed to work well that way.) So MS Office can easily be used in a "not installed on Windows desktop" way.
Visual Studio. This feels like circular reasoning. You want to make a point about needing a Windows desktop, so you install a tool specifically designed around doing that, to show that you need Windows. If you were to remove Windows, you'd magically remove the need for Visual Studio, as well. That being said, I have Visual Studio on Linux, Microsoft makes at least some versions of VS for Linux and is working hard to be platform agnostic for that.
MS Dynamics ERP - there isn't a web interface for that? That's shocking. I know that other Dynamics members have moved away from the old legacy interface tools and are platform agnostic. MS Dynamics CRM, for example, works just fine on Linux. Is ERP that far behind?
