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on a purely mathematical level, they are the same

caspianhiro 21st Jul 2010

Let's say I have 100 desktops providing 99% uptime. That means that for any given hundred days, there will always be a broken desktop.

Now, let's put the same 100 desktops virtualized on one server, and for the sake of argument, the SAME 99% uptime. So, once every 100 days, the server goes down.

In reality, stand-alone servers are substantially more reliable than desktops. Three and four "9s" are common, factor in simple clustering of two machines, and 99.99% uptime is affordable. Then factor in desk side repair, adds-moves-changes, electricity (120w for a desktop vs 12w for a thin client) and the pros for virtualized environments become unassailable.