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Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

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Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#221

Post by r00fus »

the8472 wrote: post #96

Another one is an unholy confluence of corporate compliance bullshit Connecting to the remote machine needs to go through corporate SSO (in a browser) that then starts the native remote client. Policy requires MFA, strong, frequently changed passwords and Windows Hello on the laptop. Policy also requires screen lock after 5 minutes. For some reason policy also requires disabling copy-paste to remote machines. The end…

Why would they disable paste-into? I can understand not allowing data egress but ingress? I don't understand the use case they're preventing against.

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#222

Post by raxxorraxor »

gw99 wrote: post #11

Yep. Having worked in these environments, this solution is almost always sold to companies that are working around shitty hard to reproduce software stacks, staff trust issues, scale up difficulties and checkbox security cargo cults. The resulting outcome is usually increased staff turnover, increased cost and decreased productivity. Most of this they are having trouble rationalising or acknowledging still. You don't…

Absolutely same experience here. The pay is often nice because they also have difficulties to attract developers. Absolutely not worth it in my opinion.

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#223

Post by digdugdirk »

dugmartin wrote: post #187
senko wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to do that, but my laptop's and workstation's state inevitably get out of sync leading up to "wait why doesn't this work ... spend a couple of minutes .. ah yes I did X on the other device". (Before someone suggest "use docker": then I'd need a more powerful workstation and laptop :-) And VNCing into my workstation from the laptop has all the drawbacks that Matthew described in the article.

If you do your work in VSCode you can setup the following pretty easily and it works really well (I use it to connect to my workstation in my home office when I work in a coffee shop on my laptop or the rare occasions I go into the office): 1. Install Tailscale ( https://tailscale.com/ ) on your laptop and workstation and enable the "MagicDNS" ( https://tailscale.com/kb/1081/magicdns/ ) feature. This sets up a VPN me…

I'm a little confused as to what benefic the "MagicDNS"/Tailscale aspect is adding?

Is this faster than a traditional VPN? Is the VSCode remote development extension not able to function with a traditional VPN?

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#224

Post by mrweasel »

vegai_ wrote: post #104

Whoa, I thought they are absolutely pointless. Are they even worse?

I don't know if I think they're pointless. The idea is reasonable, for some use cases. Personally I won't use a cloud desktop, or even remote desktop on a local LAN for any real work. Just the ever so small lag on remote desktops on a local network drives me absolutely nuts.

The idea is pretty good, for light office work, but as it stands now, I wouldn't subject anyone to using Cloud desktops for any extended period of time.

But the title is pretty confusing, when you think that cloud desktops are pretty terrible and now some one claims that they are even worse.

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#225

Post by selykg »

P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #204
jonfw wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sadly, the job of a CISO typically isn't "make the most pragmatic decisions possible to keep our infrastructure secure and running smoothly". In many industries, it's more lke "join as many compliance programs as possible to expand the ability to capture revenue from regulated markets". The CISO didn't make the decision to enforce password rotation- the compliance programs your sales team asked for did

To your point, password rotation is considered an insecure practice because it causes people to append 1, 2, 3, etc to the same password. But I've seen so many companies that still insist on it.

I'm the IT guy for a new non-profit. We aren't separated yet from the company that created us, but we're in the process of separating. I get to decide all this fun stuff.

I had a very brief talk with the IT team for the larger parent company when I started and explained this stupid password rotation thing, as I came from a security background, they wanted nothing of it. Set in their ways.

For the new non-profit that I'm helping spearhead, I'm not sure I'll get away from the password rotation entirely, but I can certainly set it to something more reasonable, like every 365 days, rather than every 60 days or whatever travesty most are dealing with. I'm pretty pleased about this.

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#226

Post by corobo »

digdugdirk wrote: post #223
dugmartin wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do your work in VSCode you can setup the following pretty easily and it works really well (I use it to connect to my workstation in my home office when I work in a coffee shop on my laptop or the rare occasions I go into the office): 1. Install Tailscale ( https://tailscale.com/ ) on your laptop and workstation and enable the "MagicDNS" ( https://tailscale.com/kb/1081/magicdns/ ) feature. This sets up a VPN me…

I'm a little confused as to what benefic the "MagicDNS"/Tailscale aspect is adding? Is this faster than a traditional VPN? Is the VSCode remote development extension not able to function with a traditional VPN?

Tailscale saves time in this. It does things like busting through NATs for you to get the VPN established, useful when on varying networks with the laptop, but yeah it is a wireguard VPN after that.

(Not op, just butting in)

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#227

Post by marcosdumay »

tpush wrote: post #36
GianFabien wrote: post #30

The cost of a new fullly-spec'd workstation + high performance laptop is tiny compared to the salary of good software developers. Managements have a warped sense of how to save money and as a result grossly hurt morale and productivity where it matters the most.

> The cost of a new fullly-spec'd workstation + high performance laptop is tiny compared to the salary of good software developers. That depends highly on where you are in the world.

It almost doesn't. Computers are now cheap enough and developers mobile enough that it holds through all of the developing world, and most of the underdeveloped world.

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#228

Post by itintheory »

senko wrote: post #103
GiorgioG wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the life of me I don’t understand why folks default to laptops for development. Yes portability is great, but most of us park our behinds at the same desk everyday. If I’m going to be out of the office (away from home) I take a laptop and remote into the desktop! Even M1 macs (I have one and love it), while powerful, just can’t hold a candle to a workstation class machine.

I'd love to do that, but my laptop's and workstation's state inevitably get out of sync leading up to "wait why doesn't this work ... spend a couple of minutes .. ah yes I did X on the other device". (Before someone suggest "use docker": then I'd need a more powerful workstation and laptop :-) And VNCing into my workstation from the laptop has all the drawbacks that Matthew described in the article.

> (Before someone suggest "use docker": then I'd need a more powerful workstation and laptop :-)

Why do you believe that to be the case? Docker performance overhead is so minimal I highly doubt you'd be able to tell any difference compared to native processes.

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#229

Post by itintheory »

digdugdirk wrote: post #223
dugmartin wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do your work in VSCode you can setup the following pretty easily and it works really well (I use it to connect to my workstation in my home office when I work in a coffee shop on my laptop or the rare occasions I go into the office): 1. Install Tailscale ( https://tailscale.com/ ) on your laptop and workstation and enable the "MagicDNS" ( https://tailscale.com/kb/1081/magicdns/ ) feature. This sets up a VPN me…

I'm a little confused as to what benefic the "MagicDNS"/Tailscale aspect is adding? Is this faster than a traditional VPN? Is the VSCode remote development extension not able to function with a traditional VPN?

Not OP, but I think the purpose of tailscale w/ magicdns is to create a VPN connection directly between the laptop and desktop, regardless of the underlying network locations of either. I believe tailscale uses connection brokering so all connections can be outbound (no firewall policy / port forwarding). MagicDNS is probably just a quality of life improvement here.

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#230

Post by markandrewj »

destroy-2A wrote: post #31

Try working in banking for 20 years, stuck behind at least 1 layer of citrix living in citrix inception. Latency for every keystroke, your brain starts to add latency to latency that is not there to compensate for a life lived wearing citrix latency goggles.

This has been my experience with Citrix also, although I have heard it can be set up to work better. Has anyone had experience with HP Anywhere/Teradaci? I am curious how it would compare.
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