EMC VMware made much of its dual-prong approach to overcoming challenges in cloud infrastructure with its vCloud Suite and end-user computing arena with its new Horizon suite. A great deal of work remains, but the goal of these two suites is to eventually provide a holistic approach stretching from the user's desktop (whether a traditional desktop or mobile device) all the way through the infrastructure nuts and bolts that allow delivery of application services.
Missing in the myriad PowerPoint presentations was VMware's VDI product, VMware View. It doesn't seem to fit into either suite and is left floating somewhere between cloud infrastructure and end-user experience delivery without a clear home in either.
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Part of me hoped to see View eventually find its way into the vCloud Suite so that public and private cloud operators could deliver Windows instances via the cloud (called desktop as a service, or DaaS, by the industry). It's true that View would need to be heavily refactored to make this jump because it currently integrates directly with VMware vCenter to automate the provisioning of desktop pools and is incompatible with vCloud Director. At the moment, VMware seems to have no appetite to overcome that challenge.
The reason it lacks the appetite, though, is not because VMware sees no value in selling vCloud Director to provide DaaS. No, the issue is that Microsoft's licensing rules have made it virtually impossible to carry off.
The case for Windows VDI in the cloud
Today, IaaS (cloud-based infrastructure as a service) is primarily used to host workloads that require a great deal of elasticity or exceptionally good connectivity to the Internet. You typically do not see enterprises shoveling their entire IT infrastructures into the cloud. That's partially due to the perception of trust and security challenges still plaguing the cloud.
However, it's also because there are many workloads that need to be "close" to the users. Think email servers, file servers, and applications involving bandwidth-inefficient thick clients. Moving these kinds of workloads into the cloud might make them cheaper to run and protect, but it also means that every user workstation would need to cross the Internet to get to them.
That's why moving the actual desktop experience into the cloud makes a lot of sense for an organization that wants to fully leverage cloud computing. Doing so places the user's desktop directly adjacent to the server resources they depend on, and it offers a wide range of mobility benefits -- especially as they relate to BYOD and business continuity.
Think of how making Windows instances available on any computer, tablet, or even smartphone would be a real boon to both mobile users and to any user when the office is offline such as during an earthquake or fire. Being able to attach to your desktop from anywhere with any kind of device provides a huge amount of flexibility for users and IT departments alike.
Athough you can provision such remote desktops via shared-desktop server-based computing running Microsoft Remote Desktop (including Citrix XenApp), providing a rich user experience that rivals a full traditional desktop -- such as being able to install your own software -- typically requires a dedicated desktop experience. But you can overcome most of those challenges using VDI products such as Citrix XenDesktop and VMware View.