Amazon Jumps Into Desktop Virtualization With "WorkSpaces"

mattydread23 writes "Amazon is getting into the desktop virtualization space. This is potentially huge news for providers like Citrix, but as writer Nancy Gohring points out, the company is starting small. Very small: 'The administrator console only allows managers to provision five WorkSpaces at a time. It's possible that will change when the service becomes generally available. For now, Amazon is accepting sign ups for a limited preview of the service. '"

Comments

No Linux client?

[hawguy]

Their devices page says:

Amazon WorkSpaces clients are available for both Windows and Mac computers as well as for the iPad, Kindle Fire, and Android tablets. When WorkSpaces are provisioned for users, they will get an email containing details on how they can download the clients. The WorkSpaces PC or Mac client provides users with full access to their desktop and includes support for multiple monitors, audio, and video.

Linux support would make this more interesting so I could retask some old desktops and laptops with a linux thin client to let them access their Amazon virtual desktop. Though $50/month for a virtual desktop that includes MS Office seems a little expensive when a Dell desktop with Office Pro costs around $800 - 16 months worth of Amazon's pricing.

Re:No Linux client?

[Anonymous Coward]

See IBM for that.

Us old farts who saw the older farts scratching their heads over virtual desktops and wondering, "and this is different from dumb terminals or xwindows ... how gain?" and being thrown aside for not knowing the new technology.

IT is worse than music - at least music will pay SOME homage to the previous artists.

Next post, I'll describe how the entire "entrprenuerial" community in Silcon Valley are a bunch of rip-off artists.

Re:No Linux client?

[girlintraining]

Linux support would make this more interesting so I could...

You know, this kind of thing has been tried pretty much since the mainframe was invented. After that it was timesharing, after that it was dumb terminals, after that it was thin clients, after that it was virtualization, after that it was cloud, after that... well, and here we are. Hi Amazon.

Look, ever since Moses descended from the Mountain and brought with him two stone tables, 0 and 1, and said to us Thou Shalt Not Goto, and other things... people have been trying to get this off the ground. And it's always ended in failure because it's a bad idea.

The fact that it's Amazon's turn to derp it up shouldn't get your hopes up... and neither should adding Linux support. Or MacOS, or anything else. It's technology that has died more times than the Daleks have in Doctor Who... and yet it stubbornly comes back in via another whack plot-twist... also, just like the Daleks.

Re:No Linux client?

[ahabswhale]

Yeah, it's wildly overpriced for the value it provides. I'm generally fond of Amazon and I think Bezos is a genius but I think this idea is a real dud. Computers suitable for most office drones just aren't very expensive and any company that cares about employees being able to access desktops from remote locations already have VPNs setup.

Re:No Linux client?

[slashmydots]

Linux support is the only thing that would make this interesting. My users have a hard time remembering if something is saved on their desktop or the shared network drive. You give them a PC with a windows desktop and a link that opens a remote virtual desktop that's identical? They won't remember which desktop they saved things to. Plus, half your data is off in virtual cloud land in AWS and half is local to the computer. In fact, I take it back. Even with Linux this is an incredibly stupid idea that confuses users and doesn't save one ounce of productivity.

By the way, I'm saying this because the mention of dumb terminals or similar hardware is not mentioned in the entire article. You're running a real desktop to host this software.

Re:No Linux client?

[Decker-Mage]

Except in each iteration the code gets sloppier.

Re:No Linux client?

[cheater512]

I suspect it is more about control.

And no need to replace computers as often either.
Doesn't take much (if any) grunt to be a dumb terminal.

History Repeats?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're providing 5 workspaces. Eventually someone will make a few accounts so they can have multiple sections of 5 workspaces and he/she will call them groups. Thus Amazon for Workgroups will be born.

Google Hangouts are mostly for general groups of people. I expect Google to release a version tailored to work groups as well.

Amazon for Workgroups. Google for Workgroups. It seems Windows was ahead of it's time.

Re:Why?

[nurb432]

Support.
Portability.
Accessibility.

For starters.

Just because you are wiling to use sub-par flea-market hardware, pirate the software, and deal with all the problems, does not mean a corporation wants to waste resources on stupid stuff too.

Nothing New Under the Sun

[ApplePy]

I liked this better when it was called "mainframe".

Now get off my lawn!

It's funny. A friend of mine was trying to pitch this DaaS stuff to me a month ago as his great new genius business idea. I think my exact words were "if this is a good idea, Amazon or Google will beat us to it and sell it cheaper." Hell, even if it's not a good idea they'll kill us. And it's not. Nerds just have no concept of economics.

There are good things to be said about vertical integration, economies of scale, etc., particularly when we're talking about the manufacture of automobiles or bulk steel or what have you. But I am a firm believer in decentralization whenever possible: local government, local foodsheds, solar power, local computing. The PC gave us that when I was a youngun'... and Big Iron has been trying to find a way to take it away ever since.

Re:Nothing New Under the Sun

[Decker-Mage]

Right. My first PC occupied the entire first floor of the Science building and that was while I was a preteen. Centralization is okay for some things but I'm definitely more in the mind of a libertarian cluster pervading my universe. [That even sounds nice.] A veritable (virtual?) device cloud that connects or disconnects as suits, each autonomous (rule-guided) as required, and constrained by budget. Here, I'm personally hardware rich but well, my wallet (and accounts) look mighty bare. Others usually the opposite.

So, Amazon is bringing something more to the table, beyond their free tier in my case. Now to fiddle with other stuff while they bang things a few million times to work out the kinks.

That's what I have in mind.

Re:so unbelievably stupid

[neonmonk]

All nonsense. While I'm no fan of "desktop in the cloud" - anyone that uses RDP regularly knows that responsiveness is not that much of a problem anymore. As long as Amazon throws enough network & hardware resources at this it'll work fine. The real question is whether it's economical.

Re:so unbelievably stupid

[ApplePy]

Oh and hey... just wait til Amazon starts charging for bandwidth usage while your employees are spending their work days endlessly scrolling Facebook on their virtual cloud desktops!

Re:so unbelievably stupid

[hawguy]

> not that much of a problem anymore.

I disagree. I live in downtown Seattle, and with the fastest connection I can get locally, I still have a 190 ms ping to my ec2 servers at US West (Oregon). I've used remote desktop to a couple of Windows servers there. It is too slow to be usable.

You ought to talk to your ISP about the high latencies -- from the San Francisco Bay Area, from home, I have 105ms ping times to our East Coast AWS servers, and 58ms ping times to AWS Oregon. At the office, we have a better connection and I see around 85ms to the East Coast, and about 45ms to Oregon. I regularly use RDP to both sites and it works quite well. The 250ms to Sydney is more challenging.