Here’s the question… We’re investigating the need for a hosted desktop solution.  Here’s the data for our case:

We have about 100 semi-managed desktop sessions running on top of ESX.  They’ve been built over time and are somewhat consistent.  They all sit in our main data center.  We do not have any VDI solution in place.

We have a fairly mature desktop management environment using SCCM to deliver applications globally and a process for delivering new hardware to users.

Users have administrative rights on their desktops.

Existing hosted desktops are all persistent.

For our partners that require a desktop, they are routed over an SSL-VPN solution to a XenApp server where they launch an RDP session to their hosted desktop.

We’ve already determined that the users in need here aren’t met with a traditional XenApp solution. They are the minority of our users. It’s very small percentage of the users who would qualify (we’re not looking to change any of our traditional users or on-site users at this time).

While investigating a move to a true VDI type solution to put some consistency to those sessions, the question came up that asks:  Why do we need VDI at all?  If we refresh the sessions using current desktop standards, manage them with SCCM and they remain persistent, what value does View, XenDesktop, or other products offer us?  Would providing access to the session over RDP be a simple solution that leverages our existing processes without much additional time, effort or resources?

When I refer to ‘true VDI’, to me it’s the broker tools, provisioning tools, gold/delta image management and profile management tools.   When I look at my requirements, I believe I have an existing solution for all of these; which leads back to the question, ‘Why VDI?’