Home Network Virtual Desktop for family use
Here's my concept:
There are 4 of us in my family (wife and 2 kids under 10 and me). I can see a use case for running a server (with the correct hardware specs) to host 4 reasonably speedy desktops. We will use MS Win 10 and Office 2019 as base software. Gaming requirements would be limited to Minecraft and Unity based web games but we are limiting them to 30 mins per day (via MS family options). The server would run Windows 2016 Essentials or 2019 as I have licences for them and would use a 4TB external HDD for backups.
Internet access secured through Fortinet Firewall
With laptops or thin clients RDP'ing into the virtual desktops:
Resilience
Should anyone make their machine unusable due to dropping or spilling tea / water into them as any hardware failure wouldn't mean any loss of schoolwork or home work as that would be on shares held on the server (plus backups).
Longevity
Virtual desktop is doing the heavy lifting. We already have a performance issue with 1 laptop due to ability and age.
Backups and Maintenance
Any misguided downloading or installing can be instantly rolled back.
Server Capability
Server is a central source for all family photos and videos
Server hosts all music and media (mezzmo plug here)
Server is accessible from anywhere in the world - no skipping home work
Is there any fundamental reason why this shouldn't be viable?
What other considerations hardware or software or administration should I consider?
Internet speed viable for external access upload and download recommendation?
Internal network speed will be 1Gbps wired and ¬200Mbps via wireless devices I suspect
Working on the premise that each VD would have 8GB RAM and personal storage of around 500GB. Not sure how to provision for graphics capability....? Research seems to show that virtual graphics have come a long way using a highly capable graphics card in the base server hardware and some fancy offloading of the processing by the virtual OS. Which leads to what virtualisation application?
Could all of this be hosted on AWS?
Look forward to your responses.....
HNY
There are 4 of us in my family (wife and 2 kids under 10 and me). I can see a use case for running a server (with the correct hardware specs) to host 4 reasonably speedy desktops. We will use MS Win 10 and Office 2019 as base software. Gaming requirements would be limited to Minecraft and Unity based web games but we are limiting them to 30 mins per day (via MS family options). The server would run Windows 2016 Essentials or 2019 as I have licences for them and would use a 4TB external HDD for backups.
Internet access secured through Fortinet Firewall
With laptops or thin clients RDP'ing into the virtual desktops:
Resilience
Should anyone make their machine unusable due to dropping or spilling tea / water into them as any hardware failure wouldn't mean any loss of schoolwork or home work as that would be on shares held on the server (plus backups).
Longevity
Virtual desktop is doing the heavy lifting. We already have a performance issue with 1 laptop due to ability and age.
Backups and Maintenance
Any misguided downloading or installing can be instantly rolled back.
Server Capability
Server is a central source for all family photos and videos
Server hosts all music and media (mezzmo plug here)
Server is accessible from anywhere in the world - no skipping home work
Is there any fundamental reason why this shouldn't be viable?
What other considerations hardware or software or administration should I consider?
Internet speed viable for external access upload and download recommendation?
Internal network speed will be 1Gbps wired and ¬200Mbps via wireless devices I suspect
Working on the premise that each VD would have 8GB RAM and personal storage of around 500GB. Not sure how to provision for graphics capability....? Research seems to show that virtual graphics have come a long way using a highly capable graphics card in the base server hardware and some fancy offloading of the processing by the virtual OS. Which leads to what virtualisation application?
Could all of this be hosted on AWS?
Look forward to your responses.....
HNY
Unfortunately, RDP does not support gaming, it cannot access the underlying hardware even for the most basic games.
Internet, Microsoft Office apps, and Web browsers are fine.
You would be better off with a Stadia Gaming Account.
Internet, Microsoft Office apps, and Web browsers are fine.
You would be better off with a Stadia Gaming Account.
If you are looking for an "office" solution why not check out Nextcloud it can handle shared documents (think of it as Google docs light).the contacts / calendar can be integrated with a phone/tablet etc.
This can run on any VPS or private setup.
For gaming look into platforms that are built for gaming, most gaming systems (need to) attempt to bypass any generic OS and have direct access to hardware.
This requires specific combinations of hardware anyway.
This can run on any VPS or private setup.
For gaming look into platforms that are built for gaming, most gaming systems (need to) attempt to bypass any generic OS and have direct access to hardware.
This requires specific combinations of hardware anyway.
I have to second what David mentioned
People always seem surprised when they expect a $100/month AWS bill + they get at $10,000+ bill.Be careful I've seen large bills show up even when notifications were turned on.
Nice concept, but won't really work for home. RDP is fine for things like office, but not for anything that requires video.
You would not put it on AWS, because of the lag. Your Ping times would be much higher than locally hosted LAN. That would fully mess up games that need real time responses. Anything that needs Graphics will lag over RDP.
If you were just setting up for office, you could do an RDP, however, O365 still requires licensing per user and won't work. You'd also only get 2 admin RDP sessions at a time, unless you pay additional to set up an RDP server, but that requires additional licensing cost. Prior to Server 2012, you could run on the admin console (logged in physcially) and have 2 RDP sessions, but they did away with that. A 2nd active RDP session will kick you off the console
The license for essentials also gives you only one installation, etheir physical or virtual. The full Server 2016 or 2019 would allow you to also run 2 VMs along with a physical server install, expanding your installs to 3 and tripling your admin RDP sessions.
You're not really saving all that much by putting everything on your "server" as an alternative to getting laptops. If cost is an issue, then force the kids to share. Get one newer laptop for the more graphics intensive gaming and have them swap. That was a thing we had to do when we were growing up. You didn't buy your kids 1 of each. You bought one and had them share.
You would not put it on AWS, because of the lag. Your Ping times would be much higher than locally hosted LAN. That would fully mess up games that need real time responses. Anything that needs Graphics will lag over RDP.
If you were just setting up for office, you could do an RDP, however, O365 still requires licensing per user and won't work. You'd also only get 2 admin RDP sessions at a time, unless you pay additional to set up an RDP server, but that requires additional licensing cost. Prior to Server 2012, you could run on the admin console (logged in physcially) and have 2 RDP sessions, but they did away with that. A 2nd active RDP session will kick you off the console
The license for essentials also gives you only one installation, etheir physical or virtual. The full Server 2016 or 2019 would allow you to also run 2 VMs along with a physical server install, expanding your installs to 3 and tripling your admin RDP sessions.
Virtual desktop is doing the heavy lifting. We already have a performance issue with 1 laptop due to ability and age.If the laptop is old, then it should just be replaced or updated. An SSD replacing a HD will double the apparent speed of the system. Additional RAM so you don't swap will also improve it. However, if it's far too old a CPU, then it's not worth it.
You're not really saving all that much by putting everything on your "server" as an alternative to getting laptops. If cost is an issue, then force the kids to share. Get one newer laptop for the more graphics intensive gaming and have them swap. That was a thing we had to do when we were growing up. You didn't buy your kids 1 of each. You bought one and had them share.
ASKER
Thanks for comments so far.
I think I may have mislead the gaming situation and RDP so I'll rephrase
Is it viable to virtualise 4 desktops on a server and access them from thin clients within the home environment?
I assume a server capable of handling the core domain functions with DC, file server and hosting the Virtual desktops.
What I am unsure of is what environment would allow this concept to be viable? Clearly RDP is a no go and I should have known that but it's been a long time since I did any MS exams.
Therefore, can you help the concept along by the change of focus to the core idea of accessing VD's assuming I already have Qty 4 Win 10 pro licences and 4 Office 2019 licences (standalone install not Office 365) and that no gaming will be done (for now).
Kind regards
I think I may have mislead the gaming situation and RDP so I'll rephrase
Is it viable to virtualise 4 desktops on a server and access them from thin clients within the home environment?
I assume a server capable of handling the core domain functions with DC, file server and hosting the Virtual desktops.
What I am unsure of is what environment would allow this concept to be viable? Clearly RDP is a no go and I should have known that but it's been a long time since I did any MS exams.
Therefore, can you help the concept along by the change of focus to the core idea of accessing VD's assuming I already have Qty 4 Win 10 pro licences and 4 Office 2019 licences (standalone install not Office 365) and that no gaming will be done (for now).
Kind regards
Is it viable to virtualise 4 desktops on a server and access them from thin clients within the home environment?
Yes, if you so wish, and want to do all the maintenance as a bus mans holiday!
I assume a server capable of handling the core domain functions with DC, file server and hosting the Virtual desktops.
Yes, memory will always be your bottleneck, so you will probably need a minimum of at least 4x8GB for Virtual desktops.
RDP is sufficient for office applications and internet usage (video youtube maybe a struggle)
You may want to consider Remote Desktop Services - Server Based Computing and not individual VDI (virtual machines).
So all doable, just install 4 x Windows 10 Pro VMs, and access via RDP - simple.
Start with 2 Cores Per VM, and 8GB RAM per VM. Yoiu may need to tweak for performance.
ASKER
@Andrew, thank you. That seems straight forward enough for the 4 VM's. What about the RDP access? Another Expert mentioned only 1 or 2 connections to the server at a time? But the RDS would be connected to the VM so maybe not an issue.
I will research RDS - server based computing instead.------ So this is basically what I get when I access 2016 via the essentials interface. The app is running on the server but the GUI is presented to me on my desktop. In the same way, all existing clients could access any app as a service and negate the need to install single copies of office 2019 for example. Under the same framework they could access a VDI it just depends on the setup. I was previously looking at 'TheOfficeMaven' Remote App for something completely different. I assume this is what you are referring to? This uses the essentials architecture rather than RDP so no issues with connections, although both still depend on the hardware capability so I think it safe to say it would need a hefty chunk of RAM but 64GB is not uncommon nowadays and mbds etc seem to be quite capable.
If I take it that thin clients or browsers would be the end goal, all the computing would be done within the VDI, so the above does have a use case dependent on client.
During this research I came across Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) Azure VM's that appear to be able to leverage NVIDIA drivers for offloading graphics, which should get over the youtube issue.....
Apologies if this is a bit convoluted, it is research rather than a solution so I do appreciate the brain storming.
I will research RDS - server based computing instead.------ So this is basically what I get when I access 2016 via the essentials interface. The app is running on the server but the GUI is presented to me on my desktop. In the same way, all existing clients could access any app as a service and negate the need to install single copies of office 2019 for example. Under the same framework they could access a VDI it just depends on the setup. I was previously looking at 'TheOfficeMaven' Remote App for something completely different. I assume this is what you are referring to? This uses the essentials architecture rather than RDP so no issues with connections, although both still depend on the hardware capability so I think it safe to say it would need a hefty chunk of RAM but 64GB is not uncommon nowadays and mbds etc seem to be quite capable.
If I take it that thin clients or browsers would be the end goal, all the computing would be done within the VDI, so the above does have a use case dependent on client.
During this research I came across Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) Azure VM's that appear to be able to leverage NVIDIA drivers for offloading graphics, which should get over the youtube issue.....
Apologies if this is a bit convoluted, it is research rather than a solution so I do appreciate the brain storming.
@Andrew, thank you. That seems straight forward enough for the 4 VM's. What about the RDP access? Another Expert mentioned only 1 or 2 connections to the server at a time? But the RDS would be connected to the VM so maybe not an issue.
if you create 4 VMs, that's RDP 1-1 Access, give each family member a Windows 10 Pro VM.
I will research RDS - server based computing instead.------ So this is basically what I get when I access 2016 via the essentials interface. The app is running on the server but the GUI is presented to me on my desktop. In the same way, all existing clients could access any app as a service and negate the need to install single copies of office 2019 for example.
Exactly that, all users will access the same server, and have a GUI and their own profile. Ideal for Web, Office use.
You can use Cloud based resources for Gaming which gave hardware GPU - many offer it, you could look at Google Stadia
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Local Hardware == Fast + No surprise bills.
Likely good to search EE for AWS speed related problems + AWS surprise bills.
People always seem surprised when they expect a $100/month AWS bill + they get at $10,000+ bill.
Tip: Any service with a cost calculator impossible to understand, producing consistently incorrect answers, leads to surprise bills.