Thin Client, Or Fat Client? That Is the Question

theodp writes "If virtual desktops are so great, asks Jonathan Eunice, then why isn't everyone using them? However encouraged folks are by the progress virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) has made, and however enthused they may be about extending the wins of server virtualization over into the desktop realm, you don't see analysts and developers eating the virtual desktop dog food. And even the folks you meet from Citrix, Microsoft, Quest, VMware, and Wyse — the people selling VDI — use traditional 'fat' notebooks. So, are you using virtual desktops? Why, or why not?" I wonder how long the abbreviation VDI will stick around.

Comments

Re:Performance

[geobeck]

I studied this issue in the early 00's. The company I worked for had delayed buying any new client hardware to the point where we had administrative users on nine-year-old Dells and AutoCAD users on five-year-old machines. So of course we needed to buy new machines for everyone, and we wanted to find the cheapest solution. Well, management wanted the cheapest solution; users wanted to get some work done, rather than waiting until lunch time for their computer to log in.

In our case, including licensing and server upgrades (which were minor, because we had excess server capacity due to a shrinking company), it would have been cheaper to use a thin client system--but only for the administrative users. AutoCAD was not supported in a thin client environment (is it, even today?), and our service technicians absolutely hated using Citrix to access the ERP system. (Logging into the west coast from China, Germany, or even the midwest was ridiculous, waiting half a minute for your cursor to move across the screen.)

I finally managed to convince my boss, who loved the thin client concept, that because of remote users and AutoCAD users, it was best for us to kill off our Citrix system altogether. The power users got fast new workstations, the administrative users got shiny new PCs, our server room was leaned out and less prone to overheating, and everyone lived happily ever after--until the company folded 18 months later due to incompetent management.