var q DesktopCentralLicenseKeyHosted desktop Wikipedia. A hosted desktop is a product set within the larger cloud computing sphere generally delivered using a combination of technologies including hardware virtualization and some form of remote connection software, Citrix Xen. App or Microsoft Remote Desktop Services being two of the most common. Processing takes place within the providers datacentre environment with traffic between the datacentre and the client being primarily  display updates, mouse movements and keyboard activity additional traffic will be generated by audio print jobs. A Hosted Desktop commonly involves a browser based connection to a desktop environment which includes an office productivity suite alongside other desktop applications. The desktop is hosted, run, delivered and supported from a central location, usually a secure data center with high quality and resilient connections to the Internetcloud. Cloud Desktop is a term often used to refer to a container of a collection of virtual objects, software, hardware, configurations etc., residing on the cloud, used by a client to interact with remote services and perform computer related tasks. 1Connecting clients run pre installed or downloaded viewer applications via one of many remote desktop protocols. Clients can include thin clients, PCs, workstations, mobile and handheld devices running a variety of operating systems such as Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and others. The move towards hosted desktops, of which Virtual Desktop Infrastructure VDI is a subset, is predicted by Gartner to account for 4. PC market. The development of applications by service providers such as Google and Microsoft have accelerated this process, as has the evolution of new licensing schemes which allow fee paying based on a subscription rather than on purchase. Key characteristicseditThe centralized nature of hosted desktops can overcome common issues with mobile working, delivery of a common infrastructure across physical sites, disaster recovery, cost control and scaling updown in timely fashion. Hosted desktop services can be a comparatively simple method for applying outsourcing principles within a business although care is warranted in ensuring service provider quality to ensure compliance, data security and data protection standards meet requirements. A Hosted Desktop based environment will generally migrate user authentication, file print services and application delivery and data storage to the cloud making it accessible via secure connections from any internet enabled location. The relatively small bandwidth requirements for a Hosted Desktop means that between 5 1. DSL broadband, whilst a single user can operate quite effectively on a 3. G mobile data connection. Hosted Desktops are most often based on a Windows Server 2. Remote Desktop Services, often with an additional management layer from Vendors like Citrix Systems or Parallels Workstation to make personalisation easier. Licensing for this type of Hosted Desktop is provided by the Microsoft Service Provider License Agreement SPLA, a special type of End user license agreement. The user rents the appropriate licenses as part of the monthly fee paid to the service provider and receives automatic upgrade rights to the latest version of the software as part of the agreement. Backup and disaster recovery will be handled by the Hosted Desktop vendor with the best solutions also providing failover to alternate datacentres. Pricing ModelseditFor Hosted Desktop vendors utilising VMware and Microsoft technology, charges are normally monthly with a basic charge applied for each user of a Hosted Desktop and then additional charges for an office productivity suite, additional data storage and extra applications. Some vendors wrap a suite of the most common applications into product sets to simplify still further. Catalogs, Delivery Groups, Zones Carl Stalhood. Navigation Recently Updated. Changelog. 20. 17 Dec 4 updated Docs links to current release Persistent vs Non persistent. VDA design One of the tasks of a Citrix Architect is VDA design. There are many considerations, including the following Machine type single user virtual desktop, or multi user Remote Desktop Session Host. RDSH is more hardware efficient. Machine operating system Windows 7, Windows 1. You can find your Mathematica or Finance Platform activation key through a variety of different methods. Lua is free software distributed under the terms of the MIT license reproduced here. Lua may be used for any purpose, including commercial purposes, at absolutely no. Windows Server 2. R2, Windows Server 2. R2, Windows Server 2. Machine persistence persistent, non persistent. Number of new machines concurrent vs named users. Machine provisioning  full clones, Machine Creation Services MCS, Provisioning Services Pv. SHardware for the new machines hypervisor clusters, storage. How the machines are updated SCCM, MCS, Pv. S, etc. Application integration locally installed, App V, Layering, Xen. App published, leave on local endpoint machine, cloud apps, etc. User Profiles roaming, mandatory, home directories. Group Policies session lockdown, automation. Disaster Recovery replication. VDAs running in a warm site. DR for profiles and home directories too. Desktop Management in a Citrix environment Some environments try to use Citrix to improve desktop management. Here are some desktop management aspects of Citrix that arent possible with distributed physical desktops Datacenter network speeds The VDAs have high speed connectivity to the desktop management tools, which eliminates WAN bandwidth as a desktop management consideration. For example, you can use Microsoft App V to stream apps to VDAs. Non persistence Non persistent VDAs revert at every reboot. To update non persistent VDAs, simply update your master image. Layering The VDA VMs can be composed of multiple layers that are combined during machine boot, or when the user logs in. Citrix App. Disk and Unidesk are examples of this technology. A single layer can be shared by multiple VDAs. The layers are updated once, and all machines using the layer receive the updated layer at next bootlogin. Non persistent VDAs Probably the easiest of these desktop management technologies to implement is non persistence. However, there are several drawbacks to non persistence Master Images must be designed Which apps go on which master imageDo you install the same app on multiple master images How do you know which apps a user needs Most Citrix admins, and even desktop teams, dont know every app that a user needs. You can use tools like Liquidware Labs or Lakeside Software to discover app usage, but its a very complicated process to find commonality across multiple users. How are One off apps handledIf you have an app used by only a small number of users, do you add it to one of your master images Do you create a new master image Do you publish it from Xen. App double hopDo you stream it using App V Layering is another option. Application Licensing for licensed apps, do you install the licensed app into the master image and try to hide it from non licensed users Or do you create a new master image for the licensed users Patching multiple images when a new OS patch needs to be deployed, you have to update every master image running that OS version. Thus Citrix admins usually try to limit the number of master images, which makes image design more complicated. How do you manage an app that is installed on multiple master imagesLayering might help with this. Who manages the master images Citrix admins Desktop teamIts unlikely that traditional desktop management tools e. SCCM will ever be completely removed from an enterprise environment, which means that master image management is an additional task that was not performed before.  Does the Citrix admin team have the staff to take on this responsibility Would the desktop management team be willing to perform this new process Politically feasible Large enterprises usually have mature desktop management practices. Would this new process interfere with existing desktop management requirements Responsibility if the Citrix admins are not maintaining the master images, and if a Catalog update causes user problems, who is responsibleRDSH Apps are complicated who is responsible for integrating apps into Remote Desktop Session Host Xen. App Does the desktop team have the skills to perform the additional RDSH testing Change Control Longer Deployment Times Any change to a master image would affect every machineuser using that image, thus devQA testing is recommended for every change, which slows down app update deployment. And once a change is made to the master, it doesnt take effect until the users VDA is rebooted. Roaming Profiles some apps e. Office save user settings in user profiles. Since the machines are non persistent, the profiles would be lost on every reboot unless roaming profiles are implemented. This adds a dependency on roaming profile configuration, and the roaming profile file share. How is the Outlook OST file handled With Cloud Hosted Exchange, for best performance, Outlook needs to run in Cached Exchange mode. How is the large OST file roamed One option is to use group policy to minimize the size of the OST file. Another is to purchase a 3rd party OST handling product like FSLogix. IT Applications e. Many IT apps antivirus. Search the vendors knowledgebase for VDI, non persistent, Citrix, etc. Antivirus in particular has a huge impact on VDA performance. And the special instructions for non persistent VDAs are in addition to normal antivirus configuration. Connection Leasing does not support non persistent virtual desktops if the Xen. Desktop SQL database is down, Connection Leasing wont help you. Its not possible to connect to non persistent virtual desktops until the Xen. Desktop SQL database connection is recovered.  This affects multi datacenter designs. Application Integration Technologies Additional technologies can be used to overcome some of the drawbacks of non persistent machines Microsoft App V this technology can dynamically stream apps to a non persistent image. Different users get different apps. And the apps run in isolated bubbles. However. App V is an additional infrastructure that must be built and maintained. App V requires additional skills for the people packaging the apps, and the people troubleshooting the apps. Since the apps are isolated, app interaction is configured manually. Because of application isolation, not every app can run in App V. Maybe 6. 0 8. 0 of apps might work. How do you handle apps that dont workLayering each application is a different layer VHD file. The layering tool combines multiple layers into a single unified image. Layers are updated in one place, and all images using the layer are updated, which solves the issue of a single app in multiple images. Layering does not use application isolation, so almost 1. Layers can be mounted dynamically based on whos logging in. Theres also a persistent layer that lets users install apps, or admins can install one off apps. Unidesk is probably the most feature rich of the layering products. However. Unidesk is not free. Citrix App. Disk is free, but its features are very limited. Unidesk is a separate infrastructure that must be built and maintained. Citrix App. Disk is built into Xen. Desktop. Somebody has to create the layers. This is extremely easy in Unidesk since you simply install the applications normally no new skills to learn.