@Breffni-Potter said:

Yes you could use it like that no problem.

Could you elaborate?

I'd like to eliminate the VPN & in an ideal world have the overseas connection "on" at specific times

Let's say we have 3 types of users connection to an application via RDP (2012R2 RDS)
Type 1: Users are on the LAN (I know, I know @scottalanmiller some of us are a 'lil behind with implementing a LANless design)
Type 2: Users connect via VPN (from home/remote office)
Type 3: Users (are contractors), they connect via VPN from overseas

This seems like a good use case for ZeroTier

Pls advise!

@scottalanmiller said:

The NTG Lab is prepping this week to a new colo, in fact!

In the Canada or NY area?

@Jason said:

Cloud processing and Colo are used for different purposes.

I don't see where @scottalanmiller is saying the colo is dead. I think he's saying smaller providers can't compete with the big guys in providing cloud/hosted services (SaaS).

@Jason The reason why you can't see it, is because he never said it. I just used his quote to start a discuss

@scottalanmiller (in another thread, said)
"We do not. We used to but in this day and age there is no way for us to provide those things at value when ownCloud, Office 365, Amazon, Azure, Rackspace and others do it at a scale and quality that small providers could never achieve. We've have to charge too much and not deliver the same quality level that those players can do to be able to do that ourselves."

This is not directed at @scottalanmiller I'm just using his quote as a means to exchange some straight talk (no marketing BS) as to why one might lean one way vs the other.

Service's like email (Office365) & file access/sharing (Dropbox, ownCloud), I'd do in the cloud 100%.
I'm referring to Infrastructure & Application type servers.

To Service Providers: for your clients, what are using for "multi tenant" storage.

I 'm assuming that you are providing/hosting Infrastructure (VMs, File Servers etc) for clients.

@scottalanmiller said:

@FATeknollogee said:

@scottalanmiller

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

What type of software is it?

Software that controls Gastroenterology scopes, processors & report writers

@scottalanmiller

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

@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

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.

@scottalanmiller said:

@FATeknollogee said:

What a racket MS has going!!

Only sort of. You are always free to use RDS for remote Windows usage. Or to use Linux desktops VDI or terminal servers. You are never trapped with MS. So no matter what they charge, it's not really unfair as there is no lock in. Expensive, yes but their customers choose them because they think that it is a good investment.

What is Linux desktop VDI?
I assume there's no way to run a Windows app using the Linux VDI mechanism?

@scottalanmiller said:

@FATeknollogee said:

SA spread over a 2 or 3 year period is def a "better" deal?

On average, yes, But they are not dramatically different like they used to be.

What a racket MS has going!!

@scottalanmiller said:

@FATeknollogee said:

Is the VDA a yearly occurence (as in pay per year) or it's a one time deal?

Annual. that's what makes it so brutal.

Wow, I thought it was a one-time deal.

SA spread over a 2 or 3 year period is def a "better" deal?

Is the VDA a yearly occurence (as in pay per year) or it's a one time deal?

@Dashrender said:

Small tweak
2) the 10x Vms need to be licensed via Enterprise upgrade + SA or VDA

you don't need a Win10 Pro license as you mention - that's included in the VDA, which is renewed yearly, FYI.

I believe you need both the Win 10 Pro (list price $199) + Win 10 VDA (list $125)

@scottalanmiller said:

In the SMB, it's actually pretty practical for VDI to mean ten Windows 10 VMs running on a single server. They are all independent, do their own thing, and ten users each get one of them assigned to them. Easy peasy. It's Windows 10 so RDP is included in the technology stack and VDI SA licensing is specifically the right to access those VMs in that way.

Nothing more needed. This is actually how most SMBs picture VDI working until people start implying more things to sell to them.

What enterprises do is they layer things like RDS, XenDesktop, View or whatever on top of the VDI to provide things like "auto-provisioning" of the VMs, shared gold source image to reduce storage needs, web based access gateways and similar. Things that spin VMs up and down as load is needed. Things that are amazing - but have essentially no value in the SMB world. At least not most of the time.

All of that is just overhead that you don't need to worry about.

In this scenario of "ten Windows 10 VMs running on a single server":

1. The hypervisor is irrelevant. You could use XenServer/HyperV/KVM etc
2. The 10x VMs need to be licensed via SA or 10x Win 10 Pro lic + 10x Win VDA lic
3. You can then connect remotely to the VMs using plain, 'ol, free RDP
4. No reason to get into RDS & all other BS except you want to pay MS extra $$

Am I understanding this correctly

@scottalanmiller said:

Everything I have seen from everyone, including Chris, is that VDA is the most expensive option. VDA is a special case fallback for large companies that want to use non-Windows thin clients.

Is that really the case?
Considering that most WES7/8 thin clients are generally more $$ than the Linux equivalent?
Is VDA still needed with a Windows thin client?

If we now consider the Remix Mini at $70, is that enough to offset the VDA price differential?

@scottalanmiller said:

@FATeknollogee said:

@dafyre Nope.

What if I need to put a phone or some similar device at a remote location ?

You put a gateway in front of it.

Where is this gateway device everyone keeps talking about?
No spinning up a VM

@dafyre Nope.

What if I need to put a phone or some similar device at a remote location ?

@dafyre Yep, clear as mud

Y'all will need to "dumb" this down.
Spinning up a VM is out of the question