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Microsoft’s Windows Virtual Desktop service is now generally available

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Re: Microsoft’s Windows Virtual Desktop service is now generally available

#61

Post by tinus_hn »

snagglegaggle wrote: post #34
crazygringo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, offices virtually always do have high speed internet, which is the primary use case here. But even if you're working from somewhere else, remote desktop doesn't need "high speed" anyways. It sends intercepted OS-level draw commands rather than bitmaps, so as long as you're not doing Photoshop it's closer to terminal bandwidth than YouTube bandwidth. For the vast majority of business apps over remote des…

RDP quit forwarding rendering commands some time ago,[1] it turns out to be faster to just send a compressed image. On very low bandwidth links effects are turned off and a limited color pallet is used. You're still right -- the performance is good, and using normal UI controls you will typically not notice even a very poor connection. But this is because UI changes are an "eventually consistent" deal, and although t…

Not to mention the fact that just about no program uses the old Win32 rendering commands anymore for anything relevant. They are just far too limited.

Re: Microsoft’s Windows Virtual Desktop service is now generally available

#62

Post by teddyc »

nerdbaggy wrote: post #16
thrower123 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you beat the speed of light? That's ultimately what we're up against here. High-frequency traders lay down special fiber lines between the exchanges to get the absolute fastest possible ping times, at enormous expense[1]. That gets a 13 ms ping time from NYC to Chicago. My experience with a Steam Link, hardwired on a local ethernet makes me skeptical that any of these cloud gaming platforms will really be prac…

A lot of traders are actually switching to wireless links since RF travels faster than light in a fiber. But some fun stuff happens then https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-03/this-heat...

It travels faster because it travels "as the crow flies" instead of snaking through all the conduit for a fiber connection.

Re: Microsoft’s Windows Virtual Desktop service is now generally available

#63

Post by Wowfunhappy »

crazygringo wrote: post #23
Cyder wrote: post #2

There's still large areas just 35 miles from DC that don't have high speed internet. The cloud is STILL just for people who never leave the range of high speed internet.

First of all, offices virtually always do have high speed internet, which is the primary use case here. But even if you're working from somewhere else, remote desktop doesn't need "high speed" anyways. It sends intercepted OS-level draw commands rather than bitmaps, so as long as you're not doing Photoshop it's closer to terminal bandwidth than YouTube bandwidth. For the vast majority of business apps over remote des…

> And the basic latency (e.g. for typing text or clicking a menu) is the same as terminal latency too.

If "terminal latency" is the high watermark, it doesn't bring pleasant thoughts to mind. I find typing over ssh to be irritating. Not awful, but a clear downgrade from a local terminal.

Re: Microsoft’s Windows Virtual Desktop service is now generally available

#64

Post by bronco21016 »

ghego1 wrote: post #52

I can see the security benefit of a virtualized desktop, and in some industries I understand that that's enough to justify this kind of solution. Aside from that, I don't see so many benefits. The company still needs to provide to each employee a device, and training. I don't see many savings on this side. Companies going for cheap devices will still go for cheap devices, while those looking for higher end devices wo…

As someone who spends significant amounts of time on the road, a setup like this can be a godsend.

You mention more CPU, more SSD, more memory, just keeps getting cheaper and you’re right. You can get a pretty amazing laptop for not much more than an iPad Pro and it will handle nearly any workload. The problem is now you have to carry that and all of the batteries and accessories around. It’s so much easier for me to bring my iPad Pro 11” with a keyboard case and remote into a desktop environment for those workflows that either require a high end machine or Windows. I imagine a Surface would be even better.

Personally, I just don’t want to carry a massive laptop to get compute if I can access it remotely just fine. So that’s what I do. I have multiple VMs running Windows or Ubuntu on a high end Ryzen machine with multiple Nvidia GPUs. That’s significant more power than I could ever hope to bring with me on the road. For me the only major setback is screen real estate. Hoping one day some of these HMDs can fix that.

Re: Microsoft’s Windows Virtual Desktop service is now generally available

#65

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

belltaco wrote: post #9
Cyder wrote: post #2

There's still large areas just 35 miles from DC that don't have high speed internet. The cloud is STILL just for people who never leave the range of high speed internet.

For what it's worth I used to use remote desktop from across the world on dialup, and it was certainly usable.

In many cases we've found that RDPing to a system across the country to browse the web was a significantly smoother experience than trying to browse the web locally on that same connection. RDP is astoundingly good at what it does.

Re: Microsoft’s Windows Virtual Desktop service is now generally available

#66

Post by jki275 »

beamatronic wrote: post #39
jki275 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The area around DC, outside of the suburbs, is quite rural actually.

That’s pretty darn far. Are you trying to say Chantilly? Leesburg? Or more like Front Royal?

Anything beyond Manassas to the West and Quantico to the South, Leesburg, Warrenton, Culpeper, Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania, parts of MD to the north past Germantown, etc.

There's plenty of rural on septic systems and well water just an hour's drive out of DC.

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