Everything That There Is To Know About VDI Licensing with Windows
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Anyone with additional insight?
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It really would be nice to have a full time Microsoft person on here.
Like the other vendors.
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@Chris and @GregoryHall are with MS.
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I just remembered that you can get SA like privileges through InTune with OS support. I wonder if you can get VDI with that as well?
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@Dashrender said:
I just remembered that you can get SA like privileges through InTune with OS support. I wonder if you can get VDI with that as well?
Nothing like it last that I saw.
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Old article, but this is how bad VDA had gotten: http://www.brianmadden.com/blogs/brianmadden/archive/2012/03/01/4-ways-microsoft-is-screwing-the-desktop-virtualization-industry-and-why-i-m-quitting-the-mvp-program.aspx
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I just remembered that you can get SA like privileges through InTune with OS support. I wonder if you can get VDI with that as well?
Nothing like it last that I saw.
Meaning you didn't know about InTucne with OS support or you don't know about VDI support through this?
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I just remembered that you can get SA like privileges through InTune with OS support. I wonder if you can get VDI with that as well?
Nothing like it last that I saw.
Meaning you didn't know about InTucne with OS support or you don't know about VDI support through this?
We've done a lot with InTune and I've never seen any VDI options through it.
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Quoting @chris: I can definitely help with any licensing questions on this subject... in fact it is one that I know very well.
Windows SA will be less expensive over the long run, if you plan on hosting your desktop VMs longer than 3 years. Windows VDA is more for thin clients, 3rd party owned devices or any device that doesn't have SA. It is more expensive and doesn't include local install rights, like Windows SA does.
If you can use a Windows Server OS, going with a Data Center license might save some costs, versus going with a Windows desktop OS VM.
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@scottalanmiller said:
If you can use a Windows Server OS, going with a Data Center license might save some costs, versus going with a Windows desktop OS VM.
Definitely will if you plan to have them be around for more than 3 years (assuming 50 + device access) - but you still need RDS connections licenses, don't you?
Do you need RDS connection licenses when using VDI with SA?
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@Dashrender said:
Do you need RDS connection licenses when using VDI with SA?
No, RDS is for access to servers as a non-admin user. You don't need an RDS license to access your own desktop remotely.
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I'm no expert on VDI, but I use my InTune licence to create and licence a Windows VM on my server which I then remote desktop onto. That's VDI isn't it? I believe I'm ok to do that.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I'm no expert on VDI, but I use my InTune licence to create and licence a Windows VM on my server which I then remote desktop onto. That's VDI isn't it? I believe I'm ok to do that.
A Windows Desktop VM is VDI. Last time I used InTune, it did not provide Windows licenses, when did they start that?
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We were on InTune last year and at that time it included upgrades for Windows, but no licenses itself. Looking at their site now, it looks like even the upgrade options have been removed:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/products/microsoft-intune/Purchasing.aspx
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According to this, if you got the Intune + Software Assurance, the SA portion would include VDI rights (SA does anyway, so it is SA not InTune providing it there) but it looks like SA has been dropped now as an InTune add on.
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So it depends on when you took out your InTune licence as to whether or not you get it?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
So it depends on when you took out your InTune licence as to whether or not you get it?
Right, that appears to be the case. When we had InTune, it was available. So I assume that your plan is grandfathered. But if you were to sign up fresh today, the option for operating system licensing isn't even on the site any more. Maybe you can request it, but it's not being offered publicly. It used to be extremely prominent.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Do you need RDS connection licenses when using VDI with SA?
No, RDS is for access to servers as a non-admin user. You don't need an RDS license to access your own desktop remotely.
Not talking about access your own desktop remotely - I'm talking about accessing the VDI, that you simply have rights to use by having SA on your endpoint device.
It was my understanding that to access VDI you had to have two licenses, a VDA (which you would get through your SA) and RDS for the actual connection to a VM host based VDI session.
If though, you were running a VDI in something like VirtualBox locally on your endpoint, then you would not require an RDS license.
Is my understanding completely wrong?
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@Dashrender said:
It was my understanding that to access VDI you had to have two licenses, a VDA (which you would get through your SA) and RDS for the actual connection to a VM host based VDI session.
Nope, no idea where that would have originated. RDS is a license for end user access to servers, VDI is the license for remote end user access to a virtualized desktop. RDS has no means of being licensed for a desktop OS, it doesn't exist for them. So you can buy RDS CALs, but you have nowhere to apply them.
