How to Calculate and Reduce Your VDI Cost
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is often touted to be more cost-effective than traditional infrastructure consisting of physical PCs that run locally installed operating systems and applications. However, there are elements in VDI, such as storage and vague licensing terms, that can also drive costs up. It’s important to understand where costs come from in order to realize a good return on a VDI investment.
In this post, we’ll walk you through some benefits of VDI, tips on how to calculate VDI costs, ways to cut them and even give a comparison between VDI and traditional infrastructure costs. As a bonus, we’ll also explain how combining Parallels RAS and hyperconverged infrastructure can give you some of the most cost-effective VDI environments possible.
Definition of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
VDI is a virtualization solution that enables you to host an operating system, along with its applications, in a central location such as an on-premises datacenter or a public cloud, and then deliver them as virtual applications and desktops over a network (e.g., a local area network [LAN], wide area network [WAN], or the internet) to endpoint devices such as PCs, laptops, thin clients, phones, and tablets.
From a user’s perspective, those virtual applications and desktops look and feel as if they’re installed locally on their device even if they’re actually running remotely on a server, possibly hundreds or thousands of miles away. Normally, virtual applications and desktops use very little (sometimes no) storage, CPU, and RAM on the endpoint device. These capabilities make VDI ideal for the following use cases:
- Remote work. When the pandemic struck, it forced several businesses to send part of their workforce home. But to achieve business continuity, they needed the means to provide those remote workers with access to corporate applications and files. VDI and cloud computing were the top solutions that helped them meet that need at such short notice.
- Call centers. Call centers usually require standardized desktops that support agent rotations or shifts. VDI meets both requirements easily since (1) you can create one desktop template/master image and then provision multiple virtual desktops off of it, and (2) a single workstation can run multiple virtual desktops (one at a time), depending on the agent that’s logged in.
- Bring your own device (BYOD) environments. BYOD scenarios are normally challenging for IT administrators because they need to support various devices and device platforms, each with its own intricacies. VDI simplifies this problem since VDI-delivered applications and desktops can run seamlessly on different platforms.
- Kiosks. Kiosks are low-cost, locked-down workstations that are usually stationed in a public place or lobby and made accessible to multiple users, often the general public. You often see them in hospitals, airports, and malls. Since kiosks are normally outfitted with minimal to zero storage and low CPU and RAM, they’re suited for the low resource requirements of VDI-delivered desktops.
Benefits of VDI
VDI has many benefits. Using it can help you do the following:
- Simplify management. Instead of installing and configuring applications/desktops on individual end-user devices, IT administrators can simply provision them in one place and then have users access them over the network. This capability stands out in scenarios involving hundreds or thousands of users/devices.
- Improve flexibility. Organizations gain the flexibility to support various devices and working arrangements (e.g., onsite, remote, or hybrid) without worrying about application compatibility issues.
- Enable remote access to applications and desktops. Remote users can access their designated applications and desktops not only from any device but also from any location.
- Enhance the user experience. Users get the same user experience regardless of which device they’re using. This eliminates the need to adapt every time that users shift to a different device.
- Increase productivity. Users used to suffer loss of productivity whenever IT installed new applications on their devices. With VDI, users don’t have to give up their devices when IT teams provision applications and desktops since those tasks are carried out on the server-side of a VDI environment.
- Strengthen endpoint security. Since applications, desktops, and files are stored on servers instead of the devices themselves, those digital assets won’t be compromised even if a device is stolen or lost.
- Enable cost and energy savings. VDI-delivered applications and desktops have minimal hardware requirements. This allows you to use cheaper endpoint devices such as thin/zero clients or even repurpose legacy devices.
How to Calculate Your VDI Costs
Where do most of the costs in a typical VDI environment come from? Focus on these key areas when you attempt to calculate possible costs before building a VDI infrastructure. Here are some of the things you can do to bring those costs down, so be sure you take note.
Hardware Cost
A substantial portion of your upfront costs will come from hardware, especially if you’re going to deploy your VDI solution on-premises. You’re going to need physical servers, storage arrays/controllers, power supplies, network equipment, cooling equipment, and so on. If you’re aiming for an infrastructure with high availability, business continuity, and disaster recovery capabilities, you’ll need to factor in additional costs for redundancy as well.
The best way to reduce hardware costs is to deploy your VDI solution in a public cloud like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure, or Google Cloud Platform (GCP). That eliminates practically all your upfront hardware costs and transforms those expenses from capital expense (CAPEX) to operational expense (OPEX). Of course, your VDI solution needs to be able to support cloud deployments.
If you really prefer to have an on-premises deployment, you should consider deploying your VDI solution on hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI). HCIs, which combine compute, storage, and networking into a single appliance, are more cost-efficient than traditional infrastructure hardware. Again, you can do that only if your VDI solution supports such a deployment.
VDI Licenses
Another major contributor to your upfront costs is going to be software licenses, especially the license for your VDI solution. Most of them don’t come cheap. Moreover, a single VDI solution can have more than one license type, each tailored for a specific use case.
Generally speaking, there are two main types of licenses:
- Per-user licenses are suitable for scenarios where each user accesses virtual applications and desktops from multiple devices.
- Per-device licenses are suitable for organizations where each device is shared by multiple users (e.g., in shift-based workplaces such as call centers and hospital wards).
It’s important to understand the characteristics of each type to get the best deal for your setup.
Note that, in addition to licensing costs for your VDI solution, there are also going to be licensing costs for other software you’ll be using in your VDI environment. It’s almost a given that you’ll be delivering Windows desktops and Windows-based applications, so even if you have to factor in licensing costs for those, the costs for those items are going to be the same regardless of what VDI solution you’ll be using.
What’s more important to consider are the licensing costs for support software. For example, some VDI solutions require an installation of Microsoft SQL Server. If you want to avoid these additional licensing costs, pick a solution that can stand alone.
Other On-Premises VDI Costs
Aside from hardware costs, which we already discussed, other costs you need to consider in an on-premises VDI environment are those that have to do with architecting and deploying that environment. In addition to the physical hardware, typically your VDI environment will include hypervisors, databases, as well as other software (e.g., Active Directory). Putting all these components together into a working VDI environment will require assistance from certified experts with highly-priced professional fees.
To bring down these costs, choose a VDI solution with a simplified architecture. Some VDI solutions, like Parallels® Remote Application Server (RAS), are so easy to deploy, your in-house IT staff can perform the deployment themselves. The more complex the VDI solution is, the higher your on-premises costs will be.
Operational Expenses
Once your VDI environment is up and running, you’ll start incurring support and maintenance costs for both the underlying hardware and the software running on top of it. If you deploy your VDI solution in a public cloud, you won’t have to worry about support/maintenance costs for the underlying hardware, but you’ll need to factor in your cloud provider’s monthly/annual charges.
As for support and maintenance costs for the VDI solution itself, remember that a more complex VDI solution will amount to higher operational costs. You can bring costs down by choosing a solution with simplified architecture.
Energy Costs
VDI environments require a lot of energy. You need the energy to power your physical servers, storage systems, and network devices. And then, since your servers generate so much heat, you need energy to power your cooling systems as well. That’s going to amount to steep energy costs.
One way to reduce those costs is—yes, you guessed it right—by deploying your VDI solution in a public cloud. That move will allow you to bring down energy costs considerably. Cloud providers also have physical servers, storage systems, network devices, and cooling systems in their underlying infrastructure. They are not only cost-efficient, but economies of scale will also allow your provider to qualify for reduced energy rates and pass those savings on to you.
Cost of VDI vs. Traditional Infrastructure
Clearly, there are a lot of costs associated with VDI. So now the question is, is it really more cost-effective than traditional infrastructure? Let’s dive into that discussion now.
When you shift from traditional physical desktops to VDI-based virtual desktops, you gain savings in the following areas:
- Support/help desk/maintenance costs. Although you’ll also incur support and maintenance costs for your VDI environment, it will be less than for physical desktops, especially for user populations of larger sizes. In a traditional desktop-based environment, the more desktops you have, the larger the scope of your support/maintenance services. In comparison, issues in a VDI environment are mostly concentrated in one place—your VDI environment—regardless of the number of users.
- Endpoint device costs. The resource (CPU, RAM, storage) requirements of VDI-powered endpoint devices are many times lower than traditional desktops. That means you can procure thin clients and other lower-priced devices. In fact, you can repurpose aging desktops and turn them into even cheaper thin clients.
- Energy costs. Low specified endpoint devices generally also have lower energy costs. In some instances, such as in remote work or bring your own device (BYOD) scenarios (strategies which can be adopted safely with VDI), you won’t have to spend energy costs at all. Sure, VDI environments also have energy costs. But there are several ways such as automation/orchestration, server consolidation through virtualization, and even public cloud deployments that can bring those costs down.
- Less downtime. VDI users experience less downtime because, if an endpoint device becomes unusable, the user can simply transfer to another device and access the same virtual desktop from there. This allows users to avoid opportunity costs associated with lengthy downtimes.
Parallels RAS: A Cost-Effective VDI Solution
Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is a cost-effective, all-in-one VDI solution with several qualities that can bring your VDI costs down significantly.
First, Parallels RAS supports multiple deployment options. You can deploy it on-premises, on public clouds such as Azure, AWS, and GCP, as well as on hybrid cloud infrastructures. The ability to deploy Parallels RAS on a public cloud means you can bring down the cost of hardware, operations, and energy.
You can even reduce costs for on-premises deployments because Parallels RAS also supports HCI deployments. Hyperconverged infrastructure is more cost-efficient than traditional infrastructure from a CAPEX and OPEX standpoint. Parallels RAS supports major HCI solutions such as Nutanix, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Hyperconverged Infrastructure, and Scale Computing HC3.
A single Parallels RAS installation includes everything you need for a VDI environment. Parallels RAS doesn’t require any add-ons like MS SQL Server and other support software so you can avoid the additional licensing costs that are present in other VDI solutions.
Last but not least, Parallels RAS is built on a simplified architecture that can be understood easily by IT generalists. That means you don’t have to hire certified specialists to deploy and maintain a Parallels RAS environment. Your current IT team can take care of that.
Try what is arguably the most cost-effective VDI solution you’ll ever encounter.
