E-Handbook: Pick from three top virtual application delivery options

VDI vs. DaaS vs. RDSH for the championship of your virtual app world

From Ali vs. Frazier, to Tyson vs. Holyfield, to Balboa vs. Creed, the boxing world has seen its fair share of heavyweight bouts.

IT administrators trying to pick between VDI, desktop as a service (DaaS) and Microsoft Remote Desktop Session Host (RSDH) for virtual application delivery might feel like there is a similar fight going on in their heads. Let's take a look at VDI vs. DaaS vs. RDSH.

In one corner there's VDI. It gives admins the most control over everything, including security and user experience. VDI also lends itself best to customization, so users can make their virtual desktops and applications their own. However, setting up the infrastructure is time-consuming and expensive. And VDI comes with a litany of management headaches because IT is responsible for making sure the whole deployment runs.

In the other corner, DaaS takes a lot of those management hassles from IT's plate and offloads them to the DaaS provider. It also eliminates the upfront cost of setting up the infrastructure. But DaaS comes with licensing costs, which can easily add up. And by outsourcing management, IT sacrifices a lot of control.

In another corner -- yes, boxing is only two corners, but play along -- there's RDSH, which admins can use to set up Windows applications on a server. It's ideal when admins only need to virtualize apps rather than full desktops or when a group of users work with either a single app or a specific set of apps. The drawback is that remote desktop sessions share system resources, so if one hogs a lot of resources, the others' performance suffers.

Ring the bell on this three-round guide to find out whether DaaS, VDI or RDSH -- or a combination -- can deliver the knockout blow your virtual app delivery strategy needs.