ZDNet Education

Christopher Dawson
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There has to be a way to make cheap VDI work

By | March 4, 2010, 10:11pm PST

Last night I wrote about thin clients, PC over IP, and desktop virtualization. These all have the potential to make system admins’ lives easier, especially in education where there often aren’t many of us. They also have the potential to save money, although the upfront costs of servers, network infrastructure, software, and thin/zero-clients can be considerable. There are a few of ways to do this cheaply, though, one of which is easy (but less cheap), one of which is robust and interesting (and somewhat less cheap), and the other of which is hard (but probably very cheap).

First, we can’t ignore NComputing. NComputing has all sorts of slick products designed to take single PCs and share them among multiple users leveraging simple virtualization technologies. They recently sent me both their X350 and their L130 devices to test. I’m working up a full review, but suffice to say that for quite a low cost, the X series in particular gets you quite a bit of bang for your buck. Given a relatively powerful PC, you really can achieve desktop-level performance shared among 4 computers. An $800 PC (this is probably generous, but we’re looking for a solid dual-core with 4GB of RAM, Windows 7 Professional, and a decent warranty), 4 monitors ($110 a piece), keyboards/mice ($30 a set), 3 additional Windows 7 licenses ($70 a piece academic), and the NComputing X350 kit ($250) add up to $1820 or $455 per PC with a single point of management and negligible power consumption in 3 of the desktops.

A 28-seat lab would then be under $13,000. While cheap desktops could be had for this price, you’d be hard-pressed to match the power consumption, Windows 7 Pro functionality, and management advantages. Further cost-savings can actually be realized using their more sophisticated technologies that leverage server operating systems and hardware. This is one case where virtualization technology is basically transparent to the admin, making it well-suited to schools where virtualization expertise may be in short supply.

Go to next page to read about Virtualbox and KVM solutions »

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PC, NComputing, Microsoft Windows 7, Cloud Computing, Virtualization, Utility Computing, Storage Management, Desktops, Desktop Virtualization, Operating Systems, Microsoft Windows, Software, Hardware, Storage, Christopher Dawson

Chris Dawson is a freelance writer and consultant with years of experience in educational technology and web-based systems. In 2011, he became the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., a virtual classroom and learning network SaaS provider.

Disclosure

Christopher Dawson

Christopher Dawson is the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., by day and a freelance writer and educational technology consultant by night. Well, most of his colleagues at WizIQ are based in India, so really he's working with them whenever he can stay awake. He has worked for his local school district as a teacher and technology director, for the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, and for Biogen, Inc. (now Biogen-IDEC, Inc.). He has also consulted with STATNet and Cytyc Corporation and retains close ties with X2 Development Corporation (now owned by Follett Software, the supplier of the student information system he administered for several years). Follett is paying him a monthly honorarium to act as a presenter for their "SIS Voices for Student Achievement" community (he produces occasional blog posts and hosts a monthly webinar on the use of student information systems to inform data-driven instruction and school-wide change. He regularly purchases and/or recommends Dell hardware. This is because Dell makes good hardware and has truly committed itself to education in innovative ways, particularly with their "Connected Classroom" initiative. It isn't because he has dealings with the company through his role at WizIQ (which he does) or because they have provided him with long-term loans of a variety of equipment for in-depth testing (which they have). Intel (reference designer for the Classmate PCs he has implemented in his local schools) has provided him with long-term loans of Classmate PCs for testing, as have Dell and Lenovo with their educational offerings. He may report on any of these companies as his experiences with them have direct bearing on educational technology; positive reports are not necessarily an endorsement and he receives no direct financial compensation from these companies or any others. Intel paid all expenses for his attendance at the 2009 Intel Classmate PC Ecosystem Summit which he attended as the sole representative of the technology press. He was invited to attend in 2010 but his wife would have killed him if he spent 3 days in Vegas geeking out and left her home alone with a new baby. Acer provided him with a 50% discount on an Aspire One netbook in early 2009 after he tested it for 30 days through their educational seed program. He liked the netbook at the time but it has since broken and sits unused in his office. Canonical sent him Ubuntu lanyards, t-shirts, and mousepads for his kids. He stole one of the lanyards and proudly hangs his keys from it and occasionally features his 8-year old wearing an oversized Ubuntu t-shirt on his Facebook profile. Gunnar Optiks sent him a pair of computer glasses to evaluate for a holiday gift guide. He is wearing them now as he types this because they never asked for them back and they rock out loud. Seriously - they work brilliantly and make it much easier to spend 20 hours a day staring at an LCD. If they ever asked for them back, he would fork over the $99 and buy a pair. Microsoft gave him 2 free copies of Office 2010 professional, a desktop clock, and a useless book on Office 2010 when he attended the launch of Office/Sharepoint 2010. He occasionally uses the SharePoint lanyard they gave him instead of the Ubuntu lanyard for his keys, but feels dirty afterwards. Adobe provided him with a pre-release version of the CS5 Master Collection for evaluation and ultimately provided a full, licensed copy for ongoing testing of educational applications of this admittedly expensive software. Like the Gunnars, if the license expires or they come out with CS6, he'd actually go out and buy it himself. Which is saying something, because he's actually pretty cheap. Any other companies wishing to send him cool things to evaluate, wear, or otherwise adorn his kids are more than welcome to; he promises to disclose it here if he keeps any of the stuff. Finally, because WizIQ is a virtual classroom and learning network provider, Chris, as VP of Marketing, frequently interacts with, seeks out deals with, and directly or indirectly competes with a whole lot of LMS, SIS, and other Education 2.0 companies. In general, he'll limit his reporting about these companies to news that does not impact his relationship with them or with WizIQ. If he reports on them, it's because what they are doing is newsworthy or worth the attention of his readers and not because he's trying to broker some deal, damage competition, or otherwise advance his position in his day job. LMS and SIS companies, along with other online learning communities, are a pretty important part of Ed Tech. If he stops reporting on them completely, there won't be a whole lot left. He'll be sure to call out any overt conflicts of interest if they are unavoidable. Finally, Follett Software Company pays him a little tiny honorarium every month to present on their SIS Voices webinars and to write the occasional blog or discussion thread for them. Since Follett recently bought X2 (maker of an awesome web-based SIS that Chris just happened to have used, served in advisory groups for, and frequently reported on), this is probably also worth disclosing.

Biography

Christopher Dawson

Christopher Dawson grew up in Seattle, back in the days of pre-antitrust Microsoft, coffeeshops owned by something other than Starbucks, and really loud, inarticulate music. He escaped to the right coast in the early 90's and received a degree in Information Systems from Johns Hopkins University. While there, he began a career in health and educational information systems, with a focus on clinical trials and related statistical programming and database modeling. This focus led him to several positions at Johns Hopkins, a couple-year stint in private industry, teaching high school math and technology, and 2 years as the technology director for his local school district. Most recently, he started his own consulting business and is now the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., a virtual classroom and learning network provider. He lives with his wife, five kids (yes, 5), 2 dogs, and a hateful cat in a small town in north-central Massachusetts. Although he is no longer teaching, his roles with WizIQ and ZDNet allow him to continue helping students and teachers add value to education with technology rather than merely adding to the bottom line.
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Other costs
Com-mast 9th Mar 2011
This is a great article I fully understand the statement about cost in comparison to Ncomputing. I do feel however that some costs have been overlooked. Electricity costs to run the machines, far far far lower than a normal pc,
heat generation - very low next to no heat generated saving loads on air conditioning,
Maintenance - no fans to clean, no moving parts to go faulty. Long life expectancy up to 3x longer.
All these costs needed to be worked out looked at over say a 4 year period (average life expectancy, upgrade periord to many businesses, colleges ect) and worked out against stand alone pc's or even thin clients. The savings will be enormous every time. These are just the savings in the bank too not to mention the economic savings such as the carbon footprint and electronic waste. I only say this as i have recently been researching a far greener way to run 150 computers. Ncomputing wins every time for cost, performance, ease and reliability. thanks this a great website happy
View in thread
0 Votes
+ -
Hyper-V Server
JoeMama_z 5th Mar 2010
I don't know anything about a LTSP-Cluster, but
Hyper-V server is free, simple, and cluster-able.
It combined with VDI might work for you as well.
0 Votes
+ -
What about VMware ESXi - it's free!
DevJonny 5th Mar 2010
VMware ESXi : http://www.vmware.com/products/esxi/

It would provide a robust back-end for you! Also running
30 VMs you'd only need 2 Quads, but 16GB RAM might be
pushing it a little if all VMs are in use at the same
time, which I would assume they are.

- Jonny
0 Votes
+ -
Use 3-4 physical machines.
The_Curmudgeon 7th Mar 2010
XP, 7 or Ubuntu/Mint run fine in 768-1024M.
0 Votes
+ -
For those who care to know
ohbladee Updated - 5th Mar 2010
KVM, a Type 1 (bare-metal) hypervisor is found in every copy of the Linux kernel.

As for Windows volume licensing, well, if Windows is truly needed, then that is going to be an unavoidable cost.

That is not a VM issue. That is a licensing issue.

Repurposing existing older workstations with Ubuntu Linux would be an ideal scenario as Ubuntu has just a 4GB installed footprint and is happy with just 512MB RAM. They can use rdesktop or vnc or FreeNX.

The server hardware provisioning considerations aside, Ubuntu provides a $0.00 cost solution.

That's hard to beat and very attractive in these economic lean times!

So, it would appear that Chris is a Man with a Mission, in which case, everyone, please stand back at a safe distance. wink


Dietrich T. Schmitz
GNU/Linux Advocate
0 Votes
+ -
These are the articles I come to ZDNet for
city_zen 6th Mar 2010
Great article, Chris. And lots of useful info. You gave me a couple of ideas worth testing in my environment.
Unfortunately, I can't help you with any ideas about the best way to deploy a cheap VDI because evidently you know a lot more than I do about the subject happy
But I would love to read a follow up article on this where you tell us how you ended up implementing the system (or why it didn't work).

Anyway, it's sad to see that any Apple vs Microsoft article gets 100+ comments (yeah, mostly from trolls/fanbois/flame-baiters and so on, but still ..) while this kind of article doesn't even have 5.
0 Votes
+ -
Other costs
Com-mast 9th Mar 2011
This is a great article I fully understand the statement about cost in comparison to Ncomputing. I do feel however that some costs have been overlooked. Electricity costs to run the machines, far far far lower than a normal pc,
heat generation - very low next to no heat generated saving loads on air conditioning,
Maintenance - no fans to clean, no moving parts to go faulty. Long life expectancy up to 3x longer.
All these costs needed to be worked out looked at over say a 4 year period (average life expectancy, upgrade periord to many businesses, colleges ect) and worked out against stand alone pc's or even thin clients. The savings will be enormous every time. These are just the savings in the bank too not to mention the economic savings such as the carbon footprint and electronic waste. I only say this as i have recently been researching a far greener way to run 150 computers. Ncomputing wins every time for cost, performance, ease and reliability. thanks this a great website happy

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