[GRLUG] Amerisure ditches its PCs, goes all virtual

[Adam Tauno Williams]

On Tue, 2010-04-13 at 04:33 -0400, peyeps at iserv.net wrote:
> If you get a call from a customer with a problem with an application, some
> times, the best solution is to shut down the application reboot the
> machine and force a re-load of the application.  The trouble is, if the
> application is running on a Citrix server, this doesn't accomplish
> anything.  You need to have the user track down whoever it is who manages
> the Citrix system, and get the profile of that user re-set.  I've never
> found out exactly what it is that is done, the user will just tell me that
> it is working fine now.  Frustrating.  Too many levels removed from where
> the real work is done.

This is certainly an issue for TSE/Citrix "virtualization";  but I think
it is fair to object to TSE/Citrix being called "virtualization".   The
TSE/Citrix solution won't really be 'good' until the quality of Windows
apps rises significantly.

Aside: for reasonably well behaved applications attaching to a user's
hive and roaming profile and dropping the related information is quite
straightforward.   Also on TSE servers the hive cleaner service can work
wonders.

I think the much better [but still currently $$$] solution is VDI or
equivalent virtualization.  Then the workstation can be 'rebooted' in
the traditional manner as it is an individual OS instance.  And that
solves a lot of the application compatibility issues.  But it is still
crazy expensive;  you'll still need some marijuana assisted ROI/TCO
studies to make it seem sane.