VDI and RDS have features that adapt to the different needs of a business but choosing between them can be challenging.
VDI vs RDS
Which Fits Your Business?
VDI and RDS can help organizations grow by enabling central management, adherence to regulations, and increase infrastructure flexibility. Why choose only one when you can have both under the same solution?
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Utilize both VDI and RDS technologies to build a flexible infrastructure that fits your needs.
Application and desktop virtualization has become an irresistible option for businesses looking to optimize resources, provide mobile solutions and deliver a consistent user experience.
Depending on their virtualization needs, companies may want to mix and match virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and Remote Desktop Services (RDS) technologies.
While both have their pros and cons, they each hold a specific purpose. Businesses need to decide which solution is the right one for their virtualization requirements, taking into consideration their current and future needs.
Parallels® Remote Application Server (RAS) allows businesses to deploy both technologies without additional costs, which saves IT administrators from making a difficult choice at the very start of their migration project.
Try out a comprehensive and cost-effective solution, Parallels RAS
Parallels RAS supports major hypervisors, allowing organizations to provision and scale RDS and VDI workloads on demand, provide faster deployments and simplify infrastructure management.
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VDI vs RDS
Which Best Fits Your Scenario?
VDI and RDS offer about the same virtualization benefits, but their design and infrastructure are different to serve various business scenarios.
| RDS | VDI | |
|---|---|---|
| Provides a dedicated virtual machine (VM) for each user in the infrastructure. | X | |
| Provides a simple deployment where operating system and application updates take place centrally. | X | |
| Users have to share the RD Session Hosts and VMs or create new ones manually. | X | |
| Administrative rights are not entirely secure, as sharing resources between multiple users takes place for a fully functional environment. | X | |
| The cost and complexity might be a concern, depending on the business needs and budget (e.g., number of employees, annual turnover, etc.). | X | |
| Managing the infrastructure and backups is easy. | X | |
| Resource management is easier, as the utilization of central processing units (CPU) and memory resources is lower, which facilitates having more users per system. | X |
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
VDI involves running users; desktops through virtual machines hosted on datacenters. In a VDI environment, each user has a dedicated VM running an OS, providing the flexibility of an isolated environment. Each user can install or uninstall applications with full or partial administration rights within the VM, while an RD Connection Broker manages these VMs. VDI is particularly useful when businesses deal with critical and confidential data that requires segregation.
Read more on what is VDI?
Benefits of VDI
- The same image is utilized.
- Managing a single operating system (OS) reduces costs.
- Processing moves to a VDI server from individual workstations.
- Easier to troubleshoot issues.
- Enhanced data security.
Remote Desktop Services (RDS)
Remote Desktop Services (RDS) is an IT term for Microsoft Windows Server features that allow users to remotely access Windows applications and desktops with a graphic user interface. The client device requires an RDS client and the RDS server requires a Windows Server OS to establish a remote connection with one or more RD Session Hosts (Terminal Servers). Users access the resources residing on the RDSH servers through shared VMs—which can breach data compliancy and regulations in certain locations.
Benefits of RDS
- Single point of maintenance.
- Only one installation for many uses.
- Reduced licensing expenditure.
- Solid Security.
- Lower Costs.
How is VDI different from RDS?
When using VDI, a pool of virtual desktop servers are configured using virtualization software. Unlike RDS, which is limited to Windows Server, VDI is not limited to a single operating system or a single application architecture.
RDS runs on a single server and users access it through a network connection and Remote Desktop Protocol. With VDI, each user receives their own virtual server. Individual OS instances are hosted on VDI VMs with associated applications and data.
Administration is simplified with VDI, as a single master image is configured and updated. When using RDS, the desktop image you configure on the server is cloned and presented to users with all of its associated applications and data.
VDI has persistent and non-persistent desktops. Persistent desktops allow personalization with custom application installs and OS configurations, while with non-persistent desktops, users are given a randomly assigned desktop from the pool.
Parallels RAS Customers
“Our advertising company has been greatly helped by Parallels RAS. With agents located all over Italy, Parallels RAS allows them access to our CRM software and the data and documents to do their work remotely.”
Luca Pagan – CTO
View Case Study“Building our Parallels RAS virtualization was incredibly easy. It has helped us supply broadcast software to our customers more efficiently.”
Karen Mee Lovgret – VP of Operations
View Case Study“We have a hosted desktop service that we supply to our customers. We also have customers with on-premises environment. For better connectivity and access, we needed a comprehensive virtualization like Parallels RAS that provides advanced features and is easy to use.”
Jean Huveneers – CTO
View Case Study“After completing the upgrade to Parallels RAS, ACSM-AGAM was excited by the ease and speed of the virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) setup.”
Fabuo Calzolari – CEO at Computer Design Srl
View Case Study“Parallels RAS makes it simple for our IT admins to support any device that students and teachers prefer to use and saves us hours of setup times. The Parallels RAS mobile client for iOS and Android enables our students and teachers to be truly productive on the go or at home.”
Paul Miller – Head of IT
View Case StudyVDI vs RDS
Key Takeaways
The optimal situation is a combined infrastructure that evolves with business needs, moving between the two models without extra cost and planning.
Parallels® RAS allows the interchangeable usage of these two technologies, enabling more flexibility for administrators. Parallels RAS also supports all major hypervisors, such as Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix Hypervisor, VMware ESXi, Nutanix Acropolis (AHV), Scale Computing HC3 and KVM.
Parallels develops native clients on most platforms, including Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, Android, Google Chromebook and any HTML5 web browser.
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