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Except the endgame is the beancounters win. Always. First phase of a tech rollout gives overly generous hardware, because the end user needs to be won over.

Except the endgame is the beancounters win. Always. First phase of a tech rollout gives overly generous hardware, because the end user needs to be won over. Then comes right-sizing because it makes economic sense, and we know things are too generous. Then end users get decoupled from bean counters and the provisioning gets done by a third party corporation, so feedback cycles are broken. At that point, the race to the bottom starts. I've seen people declare: We provision to the satisfaction of the customer. Which means: If you don't do the effort to complain, all is well. The results is the best people leave, as they won't deal with that. The middlings complain, bothering their managers, so they get labelled troublemakers and are oushed out. The yes men stay and praise the situation. The 9to5ers stay and get paid no matter what, so who cares if msword's text appear multiple seconds after you typed it.

bb88 3y ago
What's funny I think is that if you are, in fact a multibillion corporation, the cost of a VDI vs a laptop for your employees is a rounding error.
- warrenm 3y ago
  If you're shortsighted enough to think the only "cost" is the device, yeah - it's a "rounding error" But the TCO of employee connectivity is not merely "the device" It's everything else that goes into it Want a standard developer environment? Create an appropriate VDI instance Want a standard CAD environment? Create an appropriate VDI instance Want a standard xyz environment? Create an appropriate VDI instance Then, based on the user role (at the moment of login), spin-up and connect to the proper image This also allows someone who does two jobs to connect to multiple VDIs based off work needs, and do the 'proper' work on each one Sure some of this is about data governance ... but most is about enabling end users to be as productive as possible Updates? Done offline in offhours just to the master image(s) New version of $OS$ needs to be deployed/trialed? Build/update one image at a time, verify, then push out as the new Golden Master
  - bb88 3y ago
    Nothing you're saying is incorrect, but once they moved people to VDI's they then discovered they can cut costs by oversubscribing a cluster. That CAD program that needs 16 threads for someone to be productive? But if the cluster is oversubscribed you'll get maybe 30% of the performance you need.

bb88 3y ago

What's funny I think is that if you are, in fact a multibillion corporation, the cost of a VDI vs a laptop for your employees is a rounding error.

warrenm 3y ago
If you're shortsighted enough to think the only "cost" is the device, yeah - it's a "rounding error" But the TCO of employee connectivity is not merely "the device" It's everything else that goes into it Want a standard developer environment? Create an appropriate VDI instance Want a standard CAD environment? Create an appropriate VDI instance Want a standard xyz environment? Create an appropriate VDI instance Then, based on the user role (at the moment of login), spin-up and connect to the proper image This also allows someone who does two jobs to connect to multiple VDIs based off work needs, and do the 'proper' work on each one Sure some of this is about data governance ... but most is about enabling end users to be as productive as possible Updates? Done offline in offhours just to the master image(s) New version of $OS$ needs to be deployed/trialed? Build/update one image at a time, verify, then push out as the new Golden Master
- bb88 3y ago
  Nothing you're saying is incorrect, but once they moved people to VDI's they then discovered they can cut costs by oversubscribing a cluster. That CAD program that needs 16 threads for someone to be productive? But if the cluster is oversubscribed you'll get maybe 30% of the performance you need.