In the spirit of sharing
I’ve been receiving a few direct requests lately for copies of a couple of my VDI diagrams, so I’m writing this post to point folks at.
These are from the earlier part of the year and could probably do with being updated, but they are for illustration and impact more than a detailed “how to” so they still work.
Both diagrams are powerpoint slides and you can download both slides here, and I’ve also included png versions with a bit of narrative. If you use the slides I’d appreciate a mention, and if you change them I’d appreciate a copy of your updated versions.
You don’t have to do this, but then if I find out I will create a voodoo doll of you.
VDI Iceberg
The purpose of this slide is to show that the majority of VDI discussions, the most well known bits of VDI, are the above-the-water topics such as display protocols and desktop optimization.
However, these surface bits represent a smaller portion of a whole VDI solution (in terms of cost, effort and other attributes). Not only is there a bigger part of the solution, but that bigger part is sometimes hidden and/or unknown by VDI experts because it’s Somebody Else’s Problem.
Ideally, you want to spend most time on the user interfacing pieces (above the water) of VDI, but there are some key aspects of the under-water pieces (network QoS is an example) that, if you ignore, you will hit and you might go down with your ship. You have been warned.
VDI Iceberg
VDI 20-layer model
This is a more boring version of the iceberg and presents a VDI technology stack. The purpose of this slide, and there’s a bit of geek humour in this, is to show that VDI is non-trivial because
- There’s a lot of technologies so there’s a lot of technology integrations, and
- Different teams (five?) manage different bits so there’s a lot of people integrations
Rolling your own VDI means evaluating, selecting, proving, designing, architecting, building, testing, deploying, operating your own stack across your existing people, process, culture, governance, metrics, tools and organization. Hardcore, you might say, and where you have things to do you need money to spend. This money is often missing from a VDI business case. I explained this in another post.
VDI 20-layer model
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