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Boost Your Business with VDI and Parallels RAS
Reduce hardware dependency and increase flexibility with instant access to remote desktops and apps from a centralized server to any device.
VDI Solutions on the Rise
Parallels® Remote Application Server (RAS) makes VDI solutions quick to deploy, easy to manage and affordable—improving security, centralizing management and reducing IT workloads.
Hypervisor Flexibility
Manage virtual machines (VMs) from different hypervisors under the same infrastructure.
Parallels RAS supports the major hypervisors, including Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware ESXi and hyperconverged infrastructures such as Nutanix Acropolis and Scale Computing HC3. Parallels RAS offers ultimate flexibility when implementing VDI.
With Parallels RAS, organizations may build a flexible IT infrastructure that is multi-cloud ready. Choose between on-premises, public cloud solutions such as Microsft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud, or a hybrid of both.
Simplified VDI Management
Parallels RAS automatically deploys VDI desktops on demand using customized templates, allowing administrators to create and deploy guest VMs on the fly. After a template is created, the IT team can instantly deploy several VMs by selecting the template and entering the number of VMs. Create a virtual desktop once and replicate it on demand.
By utilizing linked clones, the IT team can replicate an already available virtual disk from an existing VM instead of launching a whole new full VM. This allows multiple virtual machines to share the same software installation, saving disk space and deployment time.
Benefits of VDI with Parallels RAS
Unified Windows Virtual Desktop Integration
Parallels RAS extends and simplifies the capabilities of Windows Virtual Desktop by integrating and managing all workloads and resources from a central point—the Parallels RAS Console. IT administrators can streamline, provision and manage Windows Virtual Desktop workloads and components via wizards. Integrate Parallels RAS deployments with Windows Virtual Desktop, delivering a single solution to end-users.
Automated Image Optimizations
Parallels RAS provides more efficient and streamlined delivery for virtual apps and desktops with more than 130 built-in automated optimization capabilities. Administrators may leverage different pre-configured optimizations for VDI, RDSH or Windows Virtual Desktop workloads depending on the server type, and use pre-configured scripts, including those from third-party tools, saving time in optimizing images.
RDSH and VDI Local Storage Distribution
Parallels RAS provides the ability to deploy clones from templates to the local disks of multiple independent Microsoft Hyper-V hosts, rather than only using centrally shared storage such as SAN. Benefits include reduced need for complex configurations, the ability to maintain a single template for use with multiple providers and faster disk access.
VDI Delivery in Microsoft Azure
Parallels RAS supports the provisioning of VDI and Remote Desktop Session Host (RDSH) workloads directly on Microsoft Azure as a VDI platform. This allows organizations to create, scale and manage required workloads on demand directly on Microsoft Azure, rendering faster deployments, simplifying management and reducing costs. Auto-provisioning and auto-scaling of workloads can ensure the right balance between resources’ availability and compute cost when running on Microsoft Azure.
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Dynamic Storage Space Management
Admins can set a preconfigured number of VMs to be created based on a RAS template to make sure that enough VDI instances are available for users, ready to accept users’ connections and reduce login times. IT can define an alive timer, which states how long the VM stays on the server before being deleted. After the predefined time expires, the VM is deleted from the infrastructure, freeing the storage space that was reserved for it.
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VM Pool Management
VM pools offer administrators more flexibility when managing a vast number of guest VMs. IT administrators can set multiple pools based on guest VMs from specific RAS templates and provide access to different user groups. Each group can have a virtual desktop template with specific requirements, such as document-processing tools for finance or image-processing tools for creative, simplifying account management on the IT side.
VDI: Persistent vs. Non-Persistent
Parallels RAS offers two types of VDI options: persistent and non-persistent, providing flexibility for organizations to choose the model that fits their requirements.
- Persistent VDI is a session where each user’s desktop is uniquely customizable and carries over from one session to another. User data is retained and always available through any user session. Data is retained until manually deleted.
- Non-persistent VDI doesn't retain any user data. It creates a standard desktop from a Parallels RAS template that always has the same settings. It’s deleted when the user logs out or the predefined alive timer expires.
Test Template Wizard
Parallels RAS includes a Test Template wizard, which automates VM testing and VM deployment to ensure that custom-built templates work smoothly, reducing the administrator's manual tasks.
The Test Template wizard simulates the lifecycle of a VM from creation to deletion, along with user login to confirm accessibility with sufficient Active Directory permissions. This provides the administrator with peace of mind knowing that the templates are fully deployable.
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VDI Session Management
IT administrators can manage any VDI session running on the server through the desktop-based Parallels RAS Console and the web-based console, the Parallels RAS Helpdesk Tool. Helpdesk can assist any VDI user directly through the console to kill hanged processes, disconnect, log off or send a message to the user.
Parallels RAS supports Microsoft App-V, allowing multiple versions of an application to coexist on the same machine without conflict.
Read more on appv
As an alternative to VDI, Parallels RAS also supports Hosted Desktop Infrastructure.
Accommodate Additional Users Instantly
After configuring a RAS template and provision guest VMs, IT administrators can instantly deploy more guest VMs to accommodate additional users. This feature allows IT admins to instantly scale out the VDI environment in just a couple of clicks from the Parallels RAS Console. New guest VMs inherit all the preconfigured settings and accommodate the increase of users efficiently. This is beneficial for numerous industries, including in a VDI healthcare solution.
