Everything That There Is To Know About VDI Licensing with Windows
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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?
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Funny that Adobe becomes a "Windows anchor" in this case, when so many people think that it has moved to hosted (cloud, as the confused say) and don't think that they have been installing it. How weird that they don't notice the platform dependency or that they are installing it.
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Adobe CC does run on Linux, but I have no tried it as I have no need for those kinds of tools. But both MS Office, and Adobe CC are ones that get heavy compatibility focus and can be installed to Linux. You don't get official support for the installation, but who gets installation support anyway? But it remains a local install.
Although, I am pretty sure, Adobe CC will install to RDS as well. I know that Visual Studio will. So those are only sort of applicable here. Since I can run them on a Windows server without any need for a Windows desktop, even when you want to deploy them "to Windows."
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Actually, turns out that AutoDesk works with XenApp. So none of the ones listed have a "Windows Desktop" requirement, which is what we were discussing. You can use all of that software, with full support and as intended, in an environment with thin clients, Linux desktops, mixed use... whatever you want. None of them tie you to Windows desktops when those desktops don't make sense for other reasons.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Autodesk 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.
I don't konw what your definition of "normal business" is? I feel like I work for a normal business and we use it extensively throughout the organisation.
@scottalanmiller said:
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.
I'm not making any points, I was simply answering your question on what applications I use.
MS Dynamics ERP - there isn't a web interface for that? That's shocking.
There is a web interface, but it isn't as good as the desktop client. Same with Office. You might find Excel Online perfectly acceptable, but I couldn't use it day to day, it would drive me crazy.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Autodesk 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.
I don't konw what your definition of "normal business" is? I feel like I work for a normal business and we use it extensively throughout the organisation.
That's odd. I've working in a lot of businesses, hundreds for sure, and have never seen either as a part of normal staff workflows. What are you using them for for non-engineering and non-designer staff?
[I should note, in those hundreds of companies are many engineering, manufacturing and design firms where this stuff would be more normal than in an insurance or accounting firm, for example.]
Anyone else using these for roles other than those?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Same with Office. You might find Excel Online perfectly acceptable, but I couldn't use it day to day, it would drive me crazy.
It's acceptable. About as good as Google Docs. I don't really like either, they are both usable.
But that's really a temporary situation. MS is clearly on a major investment path to making that first class with the locally installed version.
But the important bit is that the "good" version works great from RDS, XenApp or equivalent. There is a great non-local installation option.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
MS Dynamics ERP - there isn't a web interface for that? That's shocking.
There is a web interface, but it isn't as good as the desktop client.
I didn't dig into this one because I expect their web client to be their focus in the future. But I believe that the "fat client" works well from a terminal server?
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It's still Windows only software though isn't? Using RDS doesn't remove your Windows dependency, or alter the fact that these are Windows only applications? Maybe I've missed the gist of the thread.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
It's still Windows only software though isn't? Using RDS doesn't remove your Windows dependency, or alter the fact that these are Windows only applications? Maybe I've missed the gist of the thread.
Sorry, the THREAD itself was only about licensing. But later on there were some other discussions (you know how threads go.) The current discussion was around VDI limitations and Windows desktop lock ins. Not Windows lock in, but Windows desktop lockins. Specifically why someone would have to use VDI in order to not have physical Windows desktops.
So that is the focus. All of the software that you listed falls into a middle ground where it either requires Windows or requires Windows for official support (except VS which is officially on Linux) and ignoring Mac options which would just be a broader lockin (most of those are available on Mac as well) but can be installed in a shared computing model on a server and shared out. I say that this is a middle ground not because it requires a Windows server, that's fine in this context, but because they need a legacy sharing mechanism like RDS or XenApp. These remove the VDI and therefore Windows Desktop requirement completely, but they are still legacy designs (some like Autodesk by necessity, some like MS Office by heritage).
So Autodesk I give a pass as a special case hardware leveraging application and they do a great job of giving options within that space. The others are moving towards better designs and mostly will get there. They are ancient apps with a lot of baggage and all have addressed using Windows as MS stated they should decades ago and don't have the desktop lockins of lesser software. Not idea, but not bad.
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So to expand on the logic that got us to this portion of the discussion:
Question?: Why does MS charge an arm and a leg for VDI? It seems unfair.
Answer?: Because customers who are stuck with VDI are almost exclusively stuck with it because they are willing to use really awful software that isn't modern in architecture (n-tier design or newer) and/or does not follow MS' own programming guidelines and doesn't work properly on Windows as designed and/or intentionally locks you in for whatever reason just to screw you on the licensing side.The examples that you gave do not lock you in to VDI but allow you to use more cost effective and flexible options. They are mostly Windows-centric, and one could make great discussions around the value of server-side agnosticism, but that's an extremely different discussion than desktop licensing and desktop agnosticism.
Key reasons why it is different? As an end user, I can consume Windows-only services without needing Windows. I can also consume things that are not available on Windows just as easily. I can run anything that I need, from anywhere that I need given these models. I can work from an iPad in a pinch. I can choose the environment that is best for me as the end users. Similarly, the admins can choose the best platforms for the applications to run from. Probably for these it would be Windows. But that can be determined by workload. There is no need to run all Windows just because of one Windows application (or no need to be Windows-less because of one application not running on Windows.)
