Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

This thesis is about investigating Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, the technologies involved with it, such as virtualization, and the different parts the infrastructure is built from including virtual machines, connection brokers, end point devices and so on. Cloud computing is discussed as well, as it is the technology the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure was compared to. The investigation into these technologies involves the history of virtualization and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. Cloud computing is introduced in a way that uses mostly the definition of it since the technology is not that old. There was also an investigation of a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure solution called VMware Horizon and a cloud computing equivalent called Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktop. These two were compared at the end of the thesis. The outcome of the thesis was satisfactory as an introduction to Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and Cloud Computing. The result of the comparison of the VDI solution VMware “Horizon” and the Cloud Computing equivalent Citrix "Virtual Apps and Desktops” was not as expected because the technologies ended up being rather similar, but their use cases were very different