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Hosted desktops are growing in popularity, with Gartner projecting that over 49 million virtual hosted desktops will take the place of conventional PCs by the end of 2013. Indeed, there are numerous business and technical advantages to substituting hosted desktops for portable, fully-functioning PCs. As the use of hosted desktops grow, new use cases and deployment models are emerging. Certain workloads, such as routine office tasks, are well-served for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), which uses virtual machine VM-based desktops on standard rack-mounted servers. VDI is ideal for many lightweight, clerical type workloads. To date, power users and mobile workers have not been able to benefit from VDI because they require the immediacy and graphical richness of a physical PC. However, now, with new microserver technology, it is possible to host desktops on small, dedicated hardware nodes with rich graphic capabilities. The new low-power AMD OpteronTM X2150 APU, deployed in the ultra-dense HP Moonshot server, combines the benefits of a virtual desktop with the performance of an actual PC.

IntroductionWe call our personal computing interface a “desktop” but the truth is that many of us are connecting to an interface that looks like a desktop PC but is actually hosted remotely. We are in the age of the hosted desktop, where we can interact with a PC-like user interface delivered by centrally-provisioned, server-based software. The hosted virtual desktop is growing in popularity. Gartner projects that 49 million desktops – about 40% of the professional PC market – will be hosted by the end of this year.

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Other estimates are lower, though still large: 451 Group puts the market share number at 20%.

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Advantages of hosted desktop include reduced tech support costs, power savings, and improved security. This growth has spurred innovation and diversity in the category. There are hosted desktops that run as virtual machines on powerful servers in a data center. This is usually referred to as Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). Blade PCs offers a dedicated blade server to run each hosted desktop. Windows Remote Desktop Services (RDS), connects thin clients of different types to access applications and data on Windows Server. Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) is a cloud-based version of hosted desktop.

The Microserver Breakthrough in Hosted Desktop Infrastructure

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Each mode of hosted desktop has its ideal cases. However, misapplying hosted desktop models can bring trouble. The pooled VM approach may work well for homogeneous, low-intensity office-type workloads. It won’t work as well for higher-level needs. And, hosted desktops can still use large amounts of power and data center space, complicating the investment decision in hosted desktop migration.

The advent of new micro server form factors and low-powered processors augurs a major advance in desktop hosting, one that adds a new, higher-level experience that augments VDI and makes hosted desktops available to a bigger, more diverse set of users. The HP Moonshot server packs 45 ProLiant m700 server cartridges into a 4.3U device, with each cartridge containing four of the new AMD Opteron

TM X2150 Accelerated

Processing Units (APUs), which run at 15 Watts. This combination essentially makes possible a hosted desktop that performs like a real PC but is energy and cost efficient at the node level.

A Brief Overview of HDIThe idea of interacting with a remote replica of a PC interface is not a new concept. Virtual desktops can trace their roots back to IBM and terminal emulation as early as the 1960s. However, like many technologies, hosted desktops have become far more sophisticated and capable concurrently with advances in servers and networks. Today, it is possible to enjoy a user experience on a hosted desktop that rivals the experience available on an actual PC.

Hosted desktops involve an intricate choreography of hardware, operating system software, application software, storage, and networking. All four elements have to work in concert in order for the user to feel as if the hosted desktop were a real PC. Users are quite sensitive to responsiveness, which in a hosted model is directly tied to latency. For this reason, the industry is constantly trying to improve the software/ hardware/ network mix for different hosted desktop use cases. Currently, three essential modes of hosted desktops predominate:

• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure – VDI involves establishing setting up virtual machines (VMs) on a server and connecting users to a VM-based virtual PC. Typically, VDI employs large-scale, conventional servers, both blade and rack-mounted, each able to host multiple virtual PCs. For instance, in a recent study conducted by AMD, it was possible to host 120 virtual desktops on a 1U server running dual AMD Opteron

TM 6378 processors

(2.4 GHz, 16 cores, 115 Watt) with 192 GB of RAM. This translates into 3.75 virtual desktops per processor core. Infrastructure managers might assign a more or fewer virtual desktops per core depending on the use case.

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• Blade PCs – In contrast to the VDI approach, which puts multiple virtual desktops on a single processor, a blade PC is a comparatively small server that runs an individual hosted desktop for a remote user from a central datacenter. The blade PC is essentially a personal computer that is kept on a server rack and accessed via a network, rather than being carried around in the outside world. It’s not possible to fit as many blade PCs as virtual desktops into a rack. The HP c7000 blade enclosure, for example, fits 32 blade PCs in 10Us.

4 That translates into

128 blade PCs in a standard 42U rack.

• Remote Desktop Services (RDS) – RDS is a feature of Windows Server. It enables remote devices, include thin client PC emulating hardware, to access data and software hosted on Windows Sever over a network using Remote Desktop Protocol. RDS can be configured to support a complete virtual desktop as well and used for VDI. Previously, RDS was known as Terminal Services for Windows Server.

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VDI

VDI in Comparison to HDI

HDI

NETWORK

DATACENTER

VMVM

VMVM

TABLET

THIN

THICK

CONNECTIONBROKER

MOONSHOT

BACKENDSTORAGE

HP m700 Cartridge with Opteron X2150

TABLET

THIN

THICKCONNECTIO

BROKE

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software for tasks that can be predicted, such as insurance claims management, the load on the virtual machines running the desktops will be even and manageable. If there is variability, there can be spikes in usage and input/output operations per second (IOPS) that can cause “bad neighbor” behavior and cause delays for everyone else who is sharing their desktop on the same server.

Hosted desktop deployment, in general, is an evolving art. Today, hosted desktops tend to work best when they are matched with a relatively static use case. Certainly, VDI is best suited to clearly defined levels of load. RDS is good for cost effectively supporting relatively static use cases. Much of the growth in demand for hosted desktops, however, has been driven by a desire for performance, quality of graphics, personalization and responsiveness. This pressure is encouraging new approaches that deliver the benefits of VDI but with the user experience of an actual desktop PC. This is where the microserver-based hosted desktops show the most promise.

The Microserver Approach to Hosted DesktopsThe evolution of HDI is occurring at the same time as a major push to make data centers more efficient in terms of cost, space, and energy. It’s not a new story, of course. The history of computing is one of continuous miniaturization, a constant drive to deliver more compute capability in ever smaller form factors. It’s a never-ending game of catch up. Modern data centers are under pressure to provide more compute cycles, driven by growth in mobile devices, big data and analytics, cloud computing, media consumption, virtual desktops, and more. With space and power maxed out, the simple solution is to build additional data center facilities, a strategy that is not financially sustainable or compatible with green computing. In some locations, there simply isn’t any more space or power available, which is the case in urban environments. Dense computing addresses this need with hardware designs that pack more compute power onto the same chassis, yet do so

Pros and Cons of Hosted DesktopsHosted desktops are gaining in popularity because they offer organizations the benefits of distributed, personal computing without some of the costs and risks of conventional desktops and laptops. When desktops are hosted and rely on “thin client” machines for remote access, they are significantly easier to maintain. Instead of conducting lengthy phone-based support calls or visiting malfunctioning machines in person, with hosted desktops, the IT department can fix PC problems centrally, with fewer hassles to the end user. Hosted desktops don’t get dropped on the floor or exposed to the elements either. No matter what happens to the inexpensive thin client device, the user’s data is not kept secure on the remote server.

Security, in general, is more effective and easier to administer with hosted desktops. This model prevents confidential information from getting left behind in airport lounges. They don’t get USB sticks containing viruses stuck into their ports. Any malware or suspicious code can be detected and deleted centrally. When employees leave, their hosted desktop can be de-provisioned instantly. Any transfers of data out of the hosted machine are logged, a deterrent to improper use of private information.

Different work styles can benefit from hosted desktops as well. At one extreme, when a large number of people are doing similar work in a fixed location, such as might occur in an insurance company, there can be great economies from provisioning virtual desktops and thin client hardware to the workers. At the other end of the scale, hosted desktops are able to support virtual work arrangements, remote workers, off-shoring, and multi-device access. It is appealing for many organizations to have workers able to access their desktop from any location on any device. Desktop hosting gives the IT department a measure of control over the potentially chaotic “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) strategy that many IT departments are being asked to support.

There are obstacles to saving money with hosted desktop, though. For one thing, it may not be suitable for all users. Graphically-intensive work is typically not feasible with VDI without an advanced graphics solution (such as the AMD FirePro

TM S7000 remote graphics) because of limited graphic

processing unit (GPU) capacity typically found on the host servers. Additionally, storage for VDI usually requires use of expensive storage area network (SAN) resources. VDI also uses specialized software, which needs to be licensed, installed, and maintained.

Then, there is performance. If the hosted desktop use case is uniform and information workers are mostly using the same

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with less power use and heat generation. This is the impetus behind the development of the microserver.

A microserver is a server that is physically small and consumes relatively little energy to do its computing. As a result, they can be packed more densely in costly data center space than can conventional rack-mounted servers. This is not to say that microservers will replace all of their larger counterparts. Microservers are suitable for certain kinds of work and not others. In fact, the main insight that led to the development of microservers was that a lot of energy and space were being wasted by standard rack-mounted servers when they were tasked with lower power workloads such as serving web pages. As David Chalmers, chief technologist for HP’s enterprise group in EMEA, described it, “If you think about how an x86 processor is typically architected today, there are hundreds of millions of transistors on there. A huge chunk of the real estate is involved in cache management and providing performance enhancements for the processor. When you’re doing web page serving you don’t use any of those transistors, so that’s effectively cost and power consumption that give you no benefit”.5

Mr. Chalmers was one of the leads in HP’s development of the Moonshot 1500 server, which places 45 ProLiant m700 microservers on removable cartridges inside a 4.3U sled. Each cartridge contains 4 AMD OpteronTM X2150 4-core low-power processors. As a result, Moonshot can hold 180 server nodes in just 4.3Us. It’s an incredible concentration of compute capability. Moonshot is exceptionally well-suited to hosted desktops. To understand why this is the case, it is first necessary to review what makes a microserver such as Moonshot function so efficiently in the first place:

• Low-power processor – To get 45 microserver cartridges into a 4.3 sled, they have to contain processors that are both physically small and low consumers of power. Otherwise, even if you could fit the chips into the sled, it would melt. The AMD Opteron X2150 processor has a processing speed of 1.5 GHz and a Thermal Design Point (TDP) – a metric of power use - of 15 Watts in its accelerated processing unit (APU) form. In contrast, the 16-core AMD Opteron

TM

6300 series, used in standard rackmount servers, works at 2.5 GHz with a TDP of 115 watts. The AMD Opteron X2150 takes the “Jaguar” processor design that it uses in laptops and adapts it for use in a server. It is built for lower power consumption across multiple design characteristics, including power gating of CPU cores and ability to work with multiple instruction set types.6 The AMD Opteron X2150 can power a hosted desktop but is able to fit in a small space.

• System on a Chip (SoC) – The AMD Opteron X2150 is an SoC. It contains all of the elements necessary to handle server workloads, such as hosted desktop, on a single integrated circuit. The benefits of SoC design include power efficiency and reduced use of space. The SoC fits easily on to the small ProLiant m700 server cartridge, shown in the photo.

• Accelerated Process Unit (APU) – The AMD Opteron X2150 is an APU. An APU combines a CPU and GPU on one silicon die. In addition to supporting rich graphics in the hosted desktop, the APU is able to offload many parallel processing tasks to the GPU, which is typically an energy efficient, powerful but underutilized processing element. In the case of the AMD Opteron X2150, the AMD Radeon

TM

GPU in the APU has 128 RadeonTM

cores (266-600 MHz), high-performance GCN Architecture, a video decoder and compression engine. The result is a graphically rich user experience combined with an overall gain in processing ability without a commensurate increase in power use.

Benefits of HP Moonshot with AMD OpteronTM X2150 Approach to HDIThe microserver-based hosted desktop has the potential to confer both business and technology-related benefits on organizations that adopt them. Understanding the benefits of microservers for hosted desktop is a subjective matter. A statement of benefit implies a comparison to the alternatives, which are VDI and actual physical PCs. However, microserver-based hosted desktops are not a replacement for VDI. Rather, they offer a different approach to hosted desktops that expands the range of users that can take advantage of the paradigm. Specific benefits will depend to a great extent on factors that are particular to each potential organizational user. These include the mix of information workers, e.g. how many are mobile and “power user” versus clerical, how much the organization spends on desktop support, storage costs, and so forth.

Estimated costs of ownership for VDI and microserver-based hosted desktops vary depending with different assumptions about the environment and use case. Research indicates that hosting desktops on the Moonshot server will result in savings in both acquisition and operations costs.

7 Some even

argue that VDI is not a money saver at all.8 On the other hand,

the momentum of the VDI trend would seem to indicate that organizations understand that it is a financial winner. Citrix, the maker of the widely used XenDesktop software, has published that their clients are saving money with VDI while

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improving their IT support. For instance, Citrix says that Seattle Children’s Hospital has saved $1,000,000 per year with VDI; that CP Insurance has cut desktop costs by 80%, and so on.

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What does a hosted desktop actually cost? And, how does that compare to an actual PC? Some observers peg the numbers as being fairly close. Art Wittmann, writing for Next Generation Data Center, estimates the total cost of a virtual PC at about $900 (See Appendix B). In this model, he assumes that the server and processor portion of the cost is $250. Substituting an HP Moonshot-based hosted desktop into this total cost formula, the price of a microserver-based hosted desktop is $1,334.

10 Both figures are about the same or higher

than what it would cost to purchase a good quality laptop for an employee. Where hosted desktops do make a difference, however, is with desktop support. Desktop support is costly. Appendix A shows the average cost of desktop support as measured by MetricNet. Annual desktop support costs average $1,170 per seat for physical PCs. This is where organizations can save using hosted desktops. Non-financial business benefits of microserver-based hosted desktops include many intangible, but important and valuable considerations, including:

• Great mobile productivity – As workers spend more time out of the office, the ability to access personalized, graphically rich desktops on mobile devices adds to overall productivity.

• Improved data security – As information workers with more intensely graphical, heavy interaction PC use join the ranks of hosted desktop users, the data they are working on becomes more secure. Rather than carrying corporate data around in laptops, they can access data that is centrally secured and managed. This cuts down the risk of a data breach, which can result in massive hard and soft costs.

• Ability to govern BYOD scenarios – With employees wanting to use their own devices (and desktops –the “D” in BYOD can also stand for “Desktop”), the IT department may struggle to govern how access is managed for data and applications. A dedicated hardware node for a hosted desktop makes it possible for the employee to use a personal tablet or phone to access the desktop and enjoy the advantages of BYOD without inadvertently violating data governance or corporate software license agreements.

Technologically, some use cases favor VDI. Others would benefit from microserver-based hosted desktops. For most high-intensity, highly variable workloads, the dedicated microserver cartridge offers greater flexibility and reliability. Advantages include:

• More consistent performance – The hosted desktop on a Moonshot cartridge has everything it needs to serve as a desktop in one self-contained unit. Unlike a virtual desktop, which splits storage from compute, the Moonshot cartridge contains a processor and a 32GB solid state drive (SSD)11. This reduces the risk of desktop performance issues due to network congestion or VM controller software problems. There is less risk of “bad neighbors” conducting so many input/output operations per second (IOPS) that they cause other users to experience delays.

• Fewer layers of software – In the HP Moonshot/AMD Opteron X2150 approach, the hosted desktop controller software establishes the desktop session but does not mediate every interaction between the end user and the desktop. With VDI, the desktop controller has to parse all user instructions and IO commands. This adds latency and increases the opportunity for system failure.

• More variability in use cases – Microserver-based hosted desktops offer a greater variety in use cases than VDI. The user has the full compute performance of the cartridge available to him or her. There is no sharing of resources, including the GPU. This enables users to do heavy, graphically intensive work.

Conclusion

IT managers have an expanded menu of options for hosted desktops as corporate users redefine how and where they work. The microserver, exemplified by the HP Moonshot 1500, incorporating low-power processors such as the AMD OpteronTM X2150 APU, takes hosted desktops to a new level of flexibility, economics, power savings, and compute density. Virtual desktop infrastructure is still ideal for many light, well understood workloads, such as clerical tasks. The microserver enables a far wider range of possibilities: Heavy compute use; graphically intense workloads; power-user scenarios such as software development and media applications. Microservers offer a lower level of power consumption per desktop than traditional blade PCs. Their greater density gives them the ability to share data center resources, such as rack space, more efficiently. This translates into a lower “node tax” per hosted desktop. Technologically, microserver-based hosted desktops offer greater consistency, higher performance, and better reliability and availability. This is only the latest steps forward in hosted desktop, too. As the art of ultra-dense computing continues to advance, there will likely be more innovations and opportunities for savings and improved hosted desktop technology.

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Item Cost per Virtual Desktop

Software - Citrix VDI In a Box 195

Citrix support 35

Windows 7 Pro 150

Thin client hardware 200

Server and CPU 250

Storage 60

Total $890

Description CostCost per ticket $62

Cost per incident $48

Cost per service request $113

Tickets per seat month 0.78

Incidents per seat month 0.6

Services requests per seat month 0.18

Incidents as a % of Total Ticket Volume

77%

Ratio of Seats to Desktop Support Technicians

164

Number of Seats 5,000

Seat months per year 60,000

Tickets per year 46,800

Incidents per year 36,000

Services requests per year 10,800

Cost of service

Tickets $2,901,600

Incidents $1,728,000

Services $1,220,400

Total $5,850,000

Cost per seat/year $1,170

Appendix A: Desktop Service Support Estimates

Source: MetricNet “The True Cost of Desktop Support”

Appendix B: Complete VDI Cost per Desktop

Source: Art Wittmann, “Calculating the True Cost of VDI,” Next Generation Data Center (April 15, 2013)

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Sources• http://www.tested.com/tech/pcs/455882-tested-intels-haswell-cpu-desktop/• http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2010/03/26/cloud-economics-by-the-square-foot/• http://www.whitestoneresearch.com/blog.aspx?filterby=Data%20centers• http://searchvirtualdesktop.techtarget.com/tip/How-to-determine-your-virtual-machine-per-core-ratio• http://www.moorinsightsstrategy.com/white-paper-hp-Moonshot-an-accelerator-for-hyperscale-workloads/ • http://searchvirtualdesktop.techtarget.com/Four-reasons-why-VDI-might-not-be-right-for-you • http://www.slideshare.net/citrix/the-7-big-bad-pitfalls-of-desktop-virtualization-deployment • http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/webmaster/article.php/3914891/What-is-a-Virtual-Desktop-and-

Why-Should-You-Care.htm• http://ongoingoperations.com/blog/2013/03/virtual-desktop-bad-for/ • http://ongoingoperations.com/virtual-desktop-benefits/• http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2013/04/08/hp-Moonshot-say-goodbye-to-the-vanilla-server/• http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2261273/hp-talks-up-amds-kyoto-despite-seeing-intel-as-a-compute-workhorse • Emerging Technology Analysis: Hosted Virtual Desktops http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?id=887912 • http://searchwinit.techtarget.com/tip/Calculating-thin-client-costs• http://www.zdnet.com/microservers-what-you-need-to-know-7000011486/ • http://www.itproportal.com/2013/07/12/hp-Moonshot-server-cartridge-teardown-and-hands-on/ MetricNet

“The True Cost of Desktop Support”• Citrix, “Virtual Desktop Cost Analysis” (2012)• Art Wittmann, “Calculating the True Cost of VDI,” Next Generation Data Center (April 15, 2013)

Footnotes• 1 http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?id=887912

• 2 http://searchvirtualdesktop.techtarget.com/news/2240206813/Desktop-virtualization-deployment-by-the-numbers

• 3 http://searchvirtualdesktop.techtarget.com/tip/How-to-determine-your-virtual-machine-per-core-ratio

• 4 http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF05a/12454-12454-3329734-469032-3328899-3822249.html?dnr=2• 5 http://www.zdnet.com/microservers-what-you-need-to-know-7000011486/• 6 http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/142163-amds-next-gen-bobcat-apu-could-win-big-in-notebooks-and-tablets-if-it- launches-on-time

• 7 http://www.eweek.com/servers/hp-shows-off-amd-based-moonshot-server-module.html/• 8 Art Wittmann, “Calculating the True Cost of VDI,” Next Generation Data Center (April 15, 2013)• 9 Citrix, “Virtual Desktop Cost Analysis” (2012)• 10 Estimate based on $125,000 list price for Moonshot, with 180 desktops per machine, or $694 per hosted desktop• 11 http://www.itproportal.com/2013/07/12/hp-moonshot-server-cartridge-teardown-and-hands-on/

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