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I love my Amazon Workspace

aws.amazon.com

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Re: I love my Amazon Workspace

#51

Post by AJRF »

commandshift90 wrote: post #47
AJRF wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was there any work done around OS X support or are there licensing issues there / not enough support from Enterprise?

OS X licensing for off-prem machines is a tricky thing, and the technology being used for streaming complicates it further, if I recall.

Thanks for answering! Other providers for OS X solutions are super dodgy / shutdown / involve time sharing (no imaging, you store everything into a personal Dropbox).

I ask about OS X support as the requirement for OS X to run Xcode kills a lot of iOS development workshops as the cost is to high / device availability is low.

Thanks again for taking the time to answer.

Re: I love my Amazon Workspace

#52

Post by mgkimsal »

jareds wrote: post #8
commandshift90 wrote: post #5

Worked on Workspaces at AWS for about a year, on the software clients in particular. I think their product has potential but for the moment is limited by some underlying technology decisions made in the interest of a quicker go-to-market. I would not be surprised if at some point soon their underlying tech became all first-party and we saw some significant improvement. There are plenty of resources throughout AWS tha…

Is there any possibility of insuring that Workspaces will be accessible to users of assistive technology? I use a WIndows PC because that's what has the best screen reader support, a quick google search didn't turn anything up about running a screen reader in the workspace and having it's sound piped back to the thin client.

coincidentally, that's what I was doing in march, and... surprisingly, it sort of worked.

client had JAWS, and the JAWS installer read itself to me while it was installing - I was rather impressed. Had to reboot, and it never came up after that - assuming it was related, but never figured it out.

The NVDA screen reader did work, as well as the windows voice assistant thing itself. both would generate audio in the workspace, and I was hearing it over my el capitan local setup.

Re: I love my Amazon Workspace

#54

Post by travelton »

In a past job, I worked with a company who deployed thin clients at various locations around the country to rapidly expand their footprint with minimum upfront capital.

However, we constantly ran in to problems with this model of centralizing computing to a Terminal Server.

If the office doesn't have 100% stable and fast internet, your users will complain. Users are accustomed to lightening fast response from clicking/typing. Also, if the internet does go out, the entire office is offline and productivity halts until resolved.

We then investigated redundant internet links... But, there's a point where the monthly recurring cost no longer justifies this model.

As cool as this tech is, I don't think it will ever take off as the risk of lost productivity, and user frustration, is too high.

Re: I love my Amazon Workspace

#56

Post by josefdlange »

AJRF wrote: post #51
commandshift90 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OS X licensing for off-prem machines is a tricky thing, and the technology being used for streaming complicates it further, if I recall.

Thanks for answering! Other providers for OS X solutions are super dodgy / shutdown / involve time sharing (no imaging, you store everything into a personal Dropbox). I ask about OS X support as the requirement for OS X to run Xcode kills a lot of iOS development workshops as the cost is to high / device availability is low. Thanks again for taking the time to answer.

As a (primarily) iOS developer by trade, I feel your pain. There are colocation operations that seem to do well. They involve racks and racks of Mac minis hanging out in a datacenter somewhere -- since it's Apple hardware, it's totally acceptable within OS X licensing terms. It costs more, of course, but it might be a valuable investment to an operation that relies on a volume of machines to be available and shareable while staving off concerns about wear and tear.

The standard, and original, is: https://macminicolo.net

I'm sure there are others.

Re: I love my Amazon Workspace

#57

Post by ylem »

In science, it's common to run one week schools on various topics for graduate students and young postdocs. When software is involved, we spend a lot of time dealing with the students' installation issues. I tried the VM approach once, but the images are relatively large and when I tried it with VMWare, the registration process was still a bit cumbersome. This time I tried Amazon workspaces for about 30 students. Though I had some initial growing pains (be careful on permissions!) and they did (I think they were just scaling up when we ran it), I would use it again. It simplifies the Mac/PC issues that we had and makes it easy to share materials. We did have one student with a linux box and it's a shame that Amazon didn't (doesn't?) have a windows client, but overall I had a positive experience. I saw that someone mentioned that there is an Azure option that's similar? At the time, I saw that VMware also had an offering. Has anyone tried it?

*disclaimer these are my personal opinions, not my employer's

Re: I love my Amazon Workspace

#60

Post by peterarmstrong »

scurvy wrote: post #29
matt_morgan wrote: post #7

I love that this idea never goes away (in my first real career job, I supported actual dumb terminals that we replaced with desktops). It never seems to take off either, but it's always just about to. I don't mean to criticize! WorkSpaces sounds pretty great.

That was my first thought, too. It's the Network Computer again!

For the young kids here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Computer
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