The virtual management platform ensures there is always a pool of VMs available for new connections. This platform not only creates VMs, but also uses templates and libraries of disk images to provision the client OSs in the VMs. This platform manages the servers and helps provision VMs quickly and efficiently.

Your decision about a protocol will depend on the device end users use to connect, such as a thin client or a remote client under a full OS. The protocol will also handle certain features such as device and printer redirection. This protocol could be the RDP protocol that's part of XP and Vista or an add-on protocol.

A protocol for the users to connect to the virtualized OS.

Examples of virtualization platforms include Hyper-V and VMware ESX Server.

The platform must have the capacity to host enough VMs for all concurrently connected users. The platform hosts VMs with the client operating systems.

For this infrastructure to function, a VDI solution must have the following elements. Each user connects via RDP to a client OS such as Windows XP or Windows Vista running as a VM on a server. The purpose of VDI is to enable a rich desktop experience for users through a central, virtualized back end that hosts virtual machines (VMs).

Vmware vdi solution components