17 ms·

Amazon WorkSpaces

484 points by jamesjyu 13y ago

jdmitch 13y ago
at 12 seconds in the video: "How come these virtual desktops are about as common as bacon in a vegan sunday brunch" ha ha!
- ocfx 13y ago
  I love bacon!
lukeqsee 13y ago
If latency becomes a non-issue (ever tried using remote desktop or even SSH over a high-latency connection?), I think this stands a very good chance of succeeding and making IT's job much easier.
- nicholassmith 13y ago
  Latency would be my biggest concern with the service, sometimes even an X11-over-ssh session on a local network can be incredibly slow to use, putting it across the internet doesn't do much to help.
  - kayoone 13y ago
    X11 over ssh is really slow. Windows RDP, VNC or Teamviewer are generally pretty fast to the point where it makes almost no difference to the normal Desktop user.
    - csmuk 13y ago
      Spot on, though outlook 2013 is a piece of crap over RDP
    - lvillani 13y ago
      In my experience on a Gbit LAN, RDP is really fast, VNC and TeamViewer, not so much. I'm connected to a Windows 7 machine via RDP and to a Mac via VNC (even though I used to use TeamViewer) with Remmina on Ubuntu.
    - nicholassmith 13y ago
      VNC in my experience is usually quite effected by latency as well, RDP was always reasonably solid which works well for most corporate concerns.
    - greedo 13y ago
      We've completely given up on X11 and moved to NoMachine...
    - luma 13y ago
      This solution is utilizing PCoIP[1] which is a very mature protocol that can support things like video streaming, adaptive compression, and remote USB device passthrough. It's nothing like VNC or X11, and I have a number of customers running thousands of users with it. VMware also licensed this protocol for their View product and it's been very successful in that space. While I generally prefer the ICA/HDX stack for VDI use, PCoIP is pretty damn nice and it's a great choice for this kind of offering. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teradici#PCoIP_Protocol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teradici#PCoIP_Protocol
      - JunkDNA 13y ago
        I second this. The protocol is incredibly fast, even over a cellular connection when zipping down the rail line on Amtrak. On a LAN I can use VMware PCoIP on an Apple Cinema Display and there is zero lag (hard to test the Cinema Display on Amtrak!). I don't know what black magic they use under the hood, but it's the only remote protocol I've ever used that didn't make me want to throw my computer out the window.
        kayoone 13y ago
        Sounds interesting, i wonder if something like this will replace home computing in the future. How is the performance when watching videos or playing some casual game, does that still work ?
        JunkDNA 13y ago
        I haven't done any gaming with it, but web video played in the browser works the same as locally. I haven't tried any full screen stuff like movies though. For regular application usage there is no perceptible lag for things like scrolling, editing, highlighting, etc...
- ghshephard 13y ago
  Completely off topic, but regarding SSH over a high latency connection - it's actually remarkably good as long you don't have loss on your link. I'm currently working with a client in Singapore that requires that I connect to their data center through a B2B L2L IPSec tunnel that is sourced in California. So, From Singapore, I connect to the VPN concentrator in California, and then from there, connect to the clients site in Singapore. So, every keystroke that goes to a server approximately 100 meters from me, Starts off in Singapore, crosses the ocean to California, comes back to Singapore, returns back to California, Comes back to Singapore again. I do this for about 8-10 hours a day - completely workable. Oh, and the Connection to the internet that my VPN connection rides on is a 3G modem, no less.
  - mjallday 13y ago
    I've done this before too (even down to it being a SG -> CA link!). I think the best practise is to automate. Waiting on individual key presses to be echoed back when there is latency is incredibly frustrating, a slight delay while a shell script runs is completely unnoticeable.
    - mikeash 13y ago
      I think a lot depends on how good of a typist you are. If you can confidently type fast, it's no problem. If you're prone to typos, latency can be unbelievably aggravating.
- gonzo 13y ago
  have you tried mosh? (http://mosh.mit.edu http://mosh.mit.edu)
zengr 13y ago
Looks like an exciting product with endless possibilities! This literally makes chromeOS redundant.
- amaks 13y ago
  Actually, it's the opposite - users can buy cheap chromebooks and access virtual desktops running in AWS from them instead of buying more expensive Windows laptops.
iaskwhy 13y ago
Seems like a competitor to Citrix, isn't it?
- stefek99 13y ago
  Ex-Citrix employee here... Sounds exactly like Citrix unless it is a partnership: http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/global-solution-providers/citrix/ http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/global-solution-providers/ci... "As an extension of its ongoing collaboration with Amazon, Citrix is now delivering its innovative networking and desktop virtualization solutions from AWS."
noir_lord 13y ago
Feel like your company isn't giving enough data to the NSA/GCHQ? Introducing Amazon WorkSpaces.
- octo_t 13y ago
  Am I the only one who is getting annoyed at these zero effort sky is falling NSA comments? Every single damn submission on the front page has some meaningless hand wringing over the exact same issue and it is 100% unproductive.
  - greendata 13y ago
    I agree they aren't productive. However, the fact that we keep hearing about it, especially from those not from the US, is informative. There is a German IT manager posting about how he's like to use this but can't due to the NSA spying. The NSA is taking money and markets out of our hands and may cause products like this to fail.
    - mikeash 13y ago
      No, there is a German IT manager posting about how he can't use it due to EU data protection laws. Nothing to do with NSA spying. Intelligent discussion about the issues of cloud computing, including data protection laws and spying, is useful and welcome. But posts that basically boil down to "LOL NSA" are not intelligent.
      - andrewcooke 13y ago
        did you read his detailed response abut safe harbour? i thought "it is now clear" was a direct reference to NSA. is it not? see here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6727500 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6727500
        mikeash 13y ago
        You're right, my bad. My overall point remains: intelligent discussion like that is great, "LOL NSA" is not.
l0c0b0x 13y ago
Holy mother of god! I've been managing full 2,000 virtual desktops and about 100 servers... I've been looking for a way out! (out of licen$ing/$oul agreement with MS and VMWare). Of course latency would be an issue, I wonder what solutions they have for low/limited-capacity clients.
- caw 13y ago
  It says it's powered by PCoIP. I've tested one of the PCoIP hardware thin clients before, and it works really well across a WAN. An employee ran from his home a graphically intensive 3D render application at 1920x1080 on one of the EVGA thin clients. We didn't test it across a 3G connection or anything like that.
- l0c0b0x 13y ago
  Yikes! Just looked at the pricing: http://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/pricing/ http://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/pricing/ Talk about high TCO! (yes, you still need the hardware to run this service). With office going online now, I'm wondering what their strategy is. This is really not what I was expecting.
  - luma 13y ago
    Excluding your endpoints, do you have a current cost accounting of the entire infrastructure capex, opex, software licensing, and any professional services behind your existing 2000 seats? I work extensively in this field and the numbers they are throwing out are extremely competitive with existing on-premises View or XenDesktop implementations I've been involved with.
    - l0c0b0x 13y ago
      We're running on 4-5yr old hardware... and our maintenance contracts, even though high wouldn't amount the yearly costs to use this service. This is at least a decent option if you're planning on new infrastructure.
      - 13y ago
sker 13y ago
If you could spin up an instance for an hour, this would be useful to those who want to buy from US stores that block by IP (cough Nexus 5 cough), but don't want to go the VPN route.
- phelmig 13y ago
  Use a proxy server.
- throwaway1979 13y ago
  I can think of a bunch of other use cases. E.g. Student spinning up an instance to work on an essay or powerpoint presentation. But yes, it looks like the pricing is not by the hour :(
- thematt 13y ago
  You can already do that with normal EC2 and for a lot cheaper too because you could use a spot instance.
- crazysim 13y ago
  You can do this now. Just fire up an instance and blow it away. I once used it to download a Steam game and tunnel it through a non-quota-counting path back to my computer.
- baruch 13y ago
  Still need a US credit card :-(
jeffbarr 13y ago
There's more information in my post at http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2013/11/amazon-workspaces-desktop-computing-in-the-cloud.html http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2013/11/amazon-workspaces-desktop... [Fixed]
- kroger 13y ago
  This one seems to be about WorkSpaces: http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2013/11/amazon-workspaces-desktop-computing-in-the-cloud.html http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2013/11/amazon-workspaces-desktop... The one you linked is about AppStream
  - jeffbarr 13y ago
    Fixed, not all parts of my brain are thread-safe.
    - cstejerean 13y ago
      The information under "WorkSpaces Feature Set" for Performance appears to be wrong, at least compared to http://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/pricing/ http://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/pricing/ It currently says: Performance - 1 vCPU, 3.75 GiB of memory, and 100 GB of persistent user storage. I believe it should be: Performance - 2 vCPU, 7.5 GiB of memory, and 100 GB of persistent user storage.
      - jeffbarr 13y ago
        The blog post was wrong. Fixed, and thanks!
- danso 13y ago
  Sorry to be the jerk. Small error in an opening paragraph (probably from a last-minute edit): > Your users can access the applications, documents, and intranet resources that they need to __get their done__, all from the comfort of their desktop computer, laptop, iPad, or Android tablet. Otherwise, thank you for the detailed write up... I almost never watch launch/demo videos
peteretep 13y ago
> Amazon WorkSpaces clients are available for both Windows and Mac computers as well as for the iPad, Kindle Fire, and Android tablets. How am I saving on licensing cost then? If I can install the client on a Linux machine, it makes sense. If I need an Apple or a Windows machine I'm ... double licensing?
- thematt 13y ago
  I don't think the objective is to save on licensing costs. I think it's to save on hardware and possibly deployment costs. Also, the primary use case seems to be using a thin client.
  - peteretep 13y ago
    Be nice to though, and it seems like it should be an easy thing...
- pkulak 13y ago
  This could be an awesome option for Chromebooks too. Shame they're only targeting large IT departments.
  - vnchr 13y ago
    Would be nice if Amazon had their own Chromebook equivalent stripped down for this use case. Maybe soon. Kindle XL HD Flamethrower Lappytop.
  - wonderyak 13y ago
    It seems like a marriage made in heaven to me.
- mmahemoff 13y ago
  I don't see them touting it as saving licenses. BUT presumably you can save by making these floating instances. If you have 1000 workers using software locally, you need 1000 licenses. If you have 1000 workers using software in the cloud, but only 100 at any time, you only need 100 licenses.
Keyframe 13y ago
Thin Client v2. Just recently there was this: http://www.cgchannel.com/2013/11/new-autodesk-initiative-puts-max-and-maya-in-your-browser/ http://www.cgchannel.com/2013/11/new-autodesk-initiative-put...
- dharma1 13y ago
  i've been looking for something like this for a while. Have you tried it? Octane renderer can produce some great results but wondering about the cloud GPU rendering cost
  - Keyframe 13y ago
    I haven't tried it. I'm mostly interested in how does it (and other GPU renderers) deal with larger scenes due to constrained GPU memory.
frewsxcv 13y ago
No desktop Linux options? :(
killerpopiller 13y ago
Sigh, grumpy german privacy data protection consultant here. Can't be used in G. for the same reasons MS Office 365 is off limits, sensitive personal and business data don't belong in non german-hosted clouds. One part of me wants that easy carefree cloud life, the other part doesn't want to feed the US-overlord anymore with our precious informations.
- mey 13y ago
  Legally or due to your privacy concerns? Just looking for clarification on your statement of "Can't" if that is a personal preference or legal obligation for government/corporations doing business locally.
  - SpikeGronim 13y ago
    Legally, due to the EU Data Protection Directive. It's a legal obligation.
  - nisa 13y ago
    Legal concerns. I'm not a lawyer but there are quite strict rules. Here is an example based on Google Analytics (first Google hit): http://www.searchlaboratory.com/blog/2013/06/germanys-data-protection-laws/ http://www.searchlaboratory.com/blog/2013/06/germanys-data-p...
  - Silhouette 13y ago
    There is a general, Europe-wide restriction on exporting personal data outside of the EEA to somewhere that doesn't provide an acceptable level of protection (which by default the United States does not). There is also a Safe Harbor scheme that is intended to overcome this problem so working with US businesses is still possible if they provide additional safeguards. However, it's now clear that no business operating in the United States can actually offer the required guarantees, no matter how sincerely they might wish to. It is therefore unclear whether a European business relying on Safe Harbor to cover its rear would actually have much of a case in court if one of its customers were actually damaged as a result. I've seen a lot of businesses at least considering pulling out of US services, cloud or otherwise, for this reason in recent months. Some are sticking with it, on the grounds that there is safety in numbers: no government regulator really wants to damage global trade by making examples of businesses who are just trying to do their work and acting in good faith, and if you're dealing with a similarly honest business from the US then the odds of an actual customer complaint are probably low enough that it might be considered an acceptable business risk. Others seem to have lawyers who are more wary and fear the penalties of something like a mass leak across the pond that would come back to bite their clients back home. In addition, some nations in Europe are a lot more concerned about privacy both legally and culturally than the US, for obvious historical reasons if nothing else, and they may have stronger laws still.
felixrieseberg 13y ago
As a microsoft employee: Windows 7? Windows Server 2008? INTERNET EXPLORER _9_? What is this? A virtual desktop service for time travellers?
- gte910h 13y ago
  Many corporations lag the bleeding edge significantly. It really hurts when CUSTOM_SOFTWARE_X doesn't work on the newest and greatest. Then, after that happens, they have to retrain everyone on the changes.
- amaks 13y ago
  You'll be surprised, but most of enterprises use XP and Windows 7. They don't use Windows 8.x for variety of reasons: cost of education, existing OS is good enough, their intranet web sites designed against IE8/9.
- tghw 13y ago
  Come on, you know better than this. Microsoft has given everyone good reason to be skeptical of every other Windows version. XP? Solid. Vista? Nope. 7? Solid. 8? Off to a rocky start...
  - scholia 13y ago
    He's referring to the out-of-date and inferior version of Internet Explorer (hence his use of caps). They could have installed IE10 or IE11 -- which are good. I can't think of a good reason for installing IE9, though maybe someone will come up with one...
    - wvenable 13y ago
      Some of our internal corporate apps require IE9 as IE10 presents compatibility issues. I'm not at all surprised that it IE9 is part of the baseline.
      - scholia 13y ago
kevrone 13y ago
"All WorkSpaces Bundles provide the Windows 7 Experience to users (provided by Windows Server 2008 R2)"
phelmig 13y ago
The NSA is gonna love this. I think their timing is quite bad. I doubt many non-us companies will start to move a big part of their infrastructure to the cloud of a US company right now. On the other hand for smaller businesses that don't have to fear espionage this could be a really cheap way to lower costs.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
mikey_p 13y ago
This looks awesome. I don't think latency will be much of an issue either. Years ago I worked on a training system that allowed users to launch the NXClient directly from a training website and run labs on EC2 instances and even from the west coast I could write code on a US East instance very comfortably, without any noticeable lag.
qhien1000 13y ago
It looks like the combination of TeamViewer and Virtual Machine.
fra 13y ago
Sunray, is that you?
- fragmede 13y ago
  'cept Sunray is no more: "In July 2013, reports circulated that Oracle was ending the development of Sun Ray, and related products.[4] Scott McNealy (long-time CEO of Sun) tweeted about this.[5] An official announcement was made August 1, 2013, with a last order in February 2014.[2]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Ray#cite_ref-eol_2-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Ray#cite_ref-eol_2-1
- techprotocol 13y ago
  Sunray as a service!
- msh 13y ago
  I used sunray's at university around 2001-2004. I actually remember them quite fondly.
ljosa 13y ago
If these can be rented by the hour, it could be a good way to get Windows machines for testing websites with various versions of Internet Explorer and testing emails with various versions of Outlook. I know that EC2 and Rackspace has Windows machines, but only with Windows Server. When I have tried that, there is always something funny, such as IE security settings that are different from those of desktop Windows installs. For now, I have settled on having local Windows installs (free licenses through BizSpark) in VirtualBox.
- afandian 13y ago
  http://www.modern.ie/en-us/virtualization-tools http://www.modern.ie/en-us/virtualization-tools
  - ljosa 13y ago
    Wow, that is fantastic—both BrowserStack.com and the prepackaged virtual machines.
- techprotocol 13y ago
  As per http://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/details/ http://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/details/, the workspace bundles provide the Windows 7 Experience to users (provided by Windows Server 2008 R2).
xdd 13y ago
Let's merge information,BI and decision strategy in Prism network, forever backup.
toddmorey 13y ago
I can see this really helping with the BYOD revolution that's happening in enterprise. There's been an increasingly awkward mix of personal use and data with computers meant for corporate work. Virtual Desktops done well can really help here. I can see more companies providing funds to employees to buy the device they prefer instead of provisioning a machine for each employee (ours does that already). Then the computer can be used locally for personal needs and through the virtual desktop for work. Though as I've been traveling more lately, I can see how the need for a persistent, high-quality internet connection can be an issue in the field.
- watty 13y ago
  I could buy a new laptop every year compared to the $75/month fee.
  - rrrhys 13y ago
    And licenses?
blahbl4hblahtoo 13y ago
I know that some of you guys have some issues with hosting data in US datacenters...but I have to tell you...I'm so fed up with IT. I'm actually sitting on hold with a major "all hands" issue with our IT department... I've done this for years...maybe 20 years at this point. I can tell you this..."We" (meaning everyone in IT) don't do desktop management well AT ALL. I can't remember the last time I used a corporate baseline. They take 10 minutes to SHUTDOWN. (That's private industry...government is worse.) I don't know why users put up with it and it makes me realize why everyone hates Windows. (The average baseline literally forces it to stink like a rotting fish.) Couple that with networking guys that are useless at telling you anything other than "its up"...ITS ALWAYS THE FIREWALL. Almost everyone that I work with just doesn't get how precarious their position actually is...if people don't want to use the sh!t that you work on you just might find yourself screwed at some point. I work in IT and I would use something like this in a HEARTBEAT if it meant getting better boot times and less "what port is open" bs. It seems to me that most people in IT actually think that the servers are more important than the people using them. Thanks for putting up with this little rant...
- Iftheshoefits 13y ago
  Moving your systems to "the cloud" won't change any of the problems you identify. It will just shift where they occur.
  - overgryphon 13y ago
    But it will. The "cloud" will eventually replace corporate IT departments. Most companies don't want an IT department, it's a necessary headache and cost center that they only deal with when it gets in the way. Moving where the problems occur to a single "cloud" company that develops the expertise to solve these problems once for each of their corporate clients is a large improvement. Companies will simply pay for cloud IT services that manage desktops, provide servers, and most importantly take care of maintenance and updates at a much cheaper total cost.
    - couradical 13y ago
thatthatis 13y ago
If they had a version of this where I could rent photoshop by the hour I'd be elated. (I know these are billed monthly, I saw that, I'm wishing for two changes simultaneously)
JoeAltmaier 13y ago
Seems like a small range of performance. 1 vCPU? Does that mean one hyperthread? What is that, a Pentium 4 or something? Where are the i7 instances? I don't see a developer finding this useful at all.
- jrmcauliffe 13y ago
  Facebook is the most resource hungry app in a lot of workplaces...
  - JoeAltmaier 13y ago
    They talk 'developer'. That's not screwing around of facebook.
robgough 13y ago
For companies that trust giant corporations more than their employees. Fortunately for amazon, I think there's probably plenty of those companies out there.
tmsh 13y ago
They should combine their delivery services and provide what I thought they were providing (this is still pretty cool but just saying): Provisioning and renting out multiple devices, controlled via the AWS console (with some sort of address delivery form and ability to rent out devices, installed with a particular image). I.e., allowing auto-provisioning to extend truly to the consumer space.
Tomdarkness 13y ago
How powerful is the 1 vCPU? If it is anything like 1 EC2 compute unit then I don't see this being useful for anything more than basic office work (i.e MS Office). Plus if I already need a computer running OS X or Windows then why would I want to pay again for renting a Windows license (As in, the monthly cost will include the cost of the Windows license)? How would the specs of the Amazon WorkSpace compare to the existing Windows or Mac Desktop PC? It might be more useful if I could use a thin client running some barebones Linux distro to access the remote workspace.
- superuser2 13y ago
  This is not for you, it's for an IT department with a nontrivial number of desktops. You pay again because centralizing users on a single machine that you can update/troubleshoot/fix/install software on once is often more cost-efficient than trying to manage 1000 autonomous Windows desktops.
  - Tomdarkness 13y ago
    I know it is not designed for people like me, else I'd be asking where the Linux options are ;) I don't work with a company that has a large IT deployment anymore but when I did their processes was not that different. They had a single image that was on every single PC and contained "standard" software. If there was any kind of problem with the machine, they'd just reimage it remotely (PXE) and if it still had problems they'd just send the machine back to Dell and get a replacement. Although management/maintenance was not really my point. Rather, if you already have functional working machines with Windows / OS X (or have to purchase them) then Amazon WorkSpaces seems expensive. If it was accessible via some cheap thin client that did not require a separate client OS license (+ the hardware that comes with machines ables to run Windows / OS X) then it would seem more appropriate.
    - superuser2 13y ago
      This is common, but Virtual Desktop Infrastructure is increasingly common currently. The only novel thing about Amazon's program is that the server is in EC2 instead of the corporate server closet. As I understand it, some of the motivators are: 1) The image is immutable (by normal users). Each startup is clean, so the potential to screw up your install is very low. Only user folders (redirected to network storage via GPO) persist. 2) You can indeed use thin clients, i.e. http://www.neweggbusiness.com/Product/Product.aspx?gclid=CITWr57V4roCFQVgMgodfl4AMQ&Item=9B-59-222-087&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleBiz&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleBiz-_-pla-_-Thin+Client+Systems-_-9B-59-222-087&ef_id=UoPpowAABNx6jQGo:20131113210539:s http://www.neweggbusiness.com/Product/Product.aspx?gclid=CIT... with VDI. You can also use old/underpowered/very cheap PCs. 3) Unlike an RDP setup, each user has their own OS instance so you don't have concurrency issues. 4) Windows Server and User/Device CALs are indeed very expensive. However, license costs for the clients are not even slightly relevant because mainstream desktop/laptop hardware comes with mandatory OEM licensing anyway and large businesses are not typically building their own PCs.
JunkDNA 13y ago
I'm wondering what customers they are targeting this to? A lot of big companies who would care about data on laptops probably have an equally kneejerk reaction to data in the cloud. You could argue it's for small companies. But they have to be a certain size before something like this starts to make sense. I don't do desktop support IT kinds of things, so perhaps I'm being a bit too sweeping in my generalization?
- deleted_account 13y ago
  Outsourcing. Rows upon rows of software developers are sitting in Shenzhen right now working on virtual desktops based in the US.
  - olalonde 13y ago
    Where do you make the connection between "virtual desktops" and outsourcing? Also, who are those Shenzhen developers and who are they working for?
    - deleted_account 13y ago
      It was SOP when I was working with off-shore devs. Some linkz: http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/Total-Economic-Impact-VDI.pdf http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/Total-Economic-Impact-VDI.pd... http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns340/ns1176/collaboration/Cisco_IT_Case_Study_VXI.pdf http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns340/ns1176... http://goo.gl/a1Tlqp http://goo.gl/a1Tlqp And who are these developers working for? I dunno, read any news stories about companies out-sourcing IT to China and India in the past ten years?
atmosx 13y ago
Thing with Amazon is that when it enters a market segment, it drives the price at a point where no competition can stand in the long run. That said, that's a service I don't understand who would wanna use. There's no place like 127.0.0.1 (or ::1)
ignostic 13y ago
This would be a great option for the many individuals who use their computers for nothing but productivity and browsing. You wouldn't need to buy Office and a new computer up front, and theoretically you can stay up-to-date without buying an entirely new laptop. You'd just need to buy a lightweight device (similar to a Chromebook) with a screen. Of course they don't even support Chrome right now (IE and FF only), but the idea would be solid for almost anyone who doesn't game or need low-latency computing.
- lambada 13y ago
  Actually, the client for accessing these desktops is a standalone app, that requires Windows, OSX, Android (incl. Kindle Fire) or iPad.
  - RockyMcNuts 13y ago
    hmmh... can't access from a client running Linux, ChromeOS, Android-X86? largely defeats the purpose if you still need a PC, license.
spitfire 13y ago
So what's the over under on them creating a Ubuntu workspaces sooner or later? That coupled with EC2 based infrastructure could make for a very compelling platform.
mberning 13y ago
They really seem to be pushing the corporate compliance / data security aspect of this, but it feels like a roundabout way of solving that problem, and in some cases, may even make it worse. Which is more dangerous? Having corporate data on a thoroughly locked down laptop, or having corporate data on a miserable cloud desktop which makes the user desperate to move the data local (dropbox, email, etc.) This is a very cool service, I just don't think the data security and compliance argument is a very good one. Unless they have some way of making sure that data can not possibly leave the virtual environment.
fintler 13y ago
I remember building something similar for a class project as part of my undergrad degree. It was basically a website where you could sign up for a virtual desktop and use the nx protocol (https://www.nomachine.com/ https://www.nomachine.com/) web browser plugin (it felt like there was no latency) to view the remote desktop. We supported Ubuntu Gutsy and Windows XP SP2. It worked great on those little Eee things that were popular at the time -- access to a desktop environment with a quad core on an Eee. This was around 2007-2008 or so, so it's tough to find anything that still remains from the project -- we sucked at marketing and didn't really get a userbase, so it died off. Here's a few docs from it that still remain online: http://www.cis.temple.edu/~wolfgang/c4339s08/WebDesc/ http://www.cis.temple.edu/~wolfgang/c4339s08/WebDesc/
airencracken 13y ago
Thin clients. Everything old is new again.
dmead 13y ago
nice try, nsa
ChuckMcM 13y ago
This is an interesting counter to ChromeOS/Chromebooks. Basically Amazon has a 'what your are familiar with, except in the cloud' as opposed to 'this new thing but it's cloud based.' The demerits for both are that you lose the cloud and you're down, someone gains access and you are compromised. So many baked in assumptions in IT about how the local workstation is local. I wonder what it does to business internet prices too.
- amalag 13y ago
  Well they can also make money by selling the thin client which the ChromeOS is good for.
  - DonGateley 13y ago
    Huh? Does a ChromeOS client exist for Workspaces or is it just "good for" it whatever that means?
    - amalag 13y ago
      I assumed it was RDP, but it is PCoIP. ChromeOS does not have that client software right now.
- 6cxs2hd6 13y ago
  Actually a killer combination is this (or a more-affordable VPS) _plus_ a Chromebook. You can SSH into your Linux desktop to do programming and heavy computing, and use web apps. If you need some GUI, you do a web app on your server and connect to it from the browser on your Chromebook. (Instead of a full-on remote desktop VNC.) This is a really nice way to work. And your Chromebook is disposable/wipe-able. It's basically a terminal. Welcome to 1970, but with the web app twist. And of course you can SSH/browse into that same server from whatever else, too. Like a tablet, a full laptop, or even a desktop.
gdulli 13y ago
Is this the continuation of the beginning of the end of low-latency client computing? It's bad enough already that my company is on Google Apps and I'm forced to use Gmail and Docs instead of Outlook/Exchange and Word/Excel.
lectrick 13y ago
Amazon Windows Workspaces
ojiikun 13y ago
Interesting. I already use an EC2 instance for exactly this (running Debian) and it has been a great way to work. My laptop only needs to be powerful enough to run an ssh client and X server and then the instance does all the heavy lifting of running applications (in this case, mostly compiling code). It is beyond cool being able to scale the hardware up/down depending on how nasty my current project's build is. Even better is that I can ssh in and do basic work from any computer than has an ssh client. Emergency one-line patch from my smartphone? Fuck yeah! Pricing of the new desktop instances looks a little high compared to reserved instances of similar power, but I imagine that is the MSFT tax at work.
- simonebrunozzi 13y ago
  Please post an how-to. Most of them are now outdated. I would love to see it.
- peatmoss 13y ago
  I've thought about going this route. Somewhere along the line I found "mosh" which might be useful to you if you're working at the terminal a bunch. I solves the typing latency issue as well as a host of platform specific terminal emulation issues.
- jrmcauliffe 13y ago
  Looks pretty good compared to the 'On Demand' instances though, even including the MS and (I assume) Teradici licensing. Somewhere in between On Demand on Reserved. If you can script yo sh!t together, spot instances is where it's at..
workhere-io 13y ago
Cool! NSA's industrial espionage is so much easier for them to perform when you store your company data directly on American servers. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying-brazil-oil-petrobras http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying-braz... http://www.dw.de/germany-fears-nsa-stole-industrial-secrets/a-16925289 http://www.dw.de/germany-fears-nsa-stole-industrial-secrets/... http://www.globalresearch.ca/nsa-busted-conducting-industrial-espionage-in-france-mexico-brazil-china-and-all-around-the-world/5355026 http://www.globalresearch.ca/nsa-busted-conducting-industria...
- ams6110 13y ago
  Likely easier for them to penetrate a typical corporate network than Amazon's
  - JTon 13y ago
    Unless Amazon is secretly in bed with them as well
    - fidotron 13y ago
      Amazon are building the CIA a cloud, so they'll at least be talking.
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    CIA contracts don't come cheap.
- micampe 13y ago
  Dear HN, can we please reduce the frequency of the same inane NSA wits in every single discussion? If there are new informations or interesting opinions I’m glad to read them, but repeating ”NSA! ah-ah!” in every single article doesn’t add anything or help anyone. Awareness is already very good in these quarters, I think any HN user knows the situation and has formed an opinion about whether to assume that every communication is tapped or how much encryption is sufficient for their case. Thank you.
aet 13y ago
Can someone give some use cases?
runewell 13y ago
This is nice, finally a company large enough to push out a heavy adoption of thin clients.
alinspired 13y ago
Very interesting if amazon will drive Cloud Desktop, DaaS and virtual desktop to wider adoption or prove it's not quite needed today
zmmmmm 13y ago
How sad that this is launching after the NSA scandal has pretty much ensured it will fail, and perhaps can't be achieved for decades. This is almost certainly the most efficient and optimal way to do desktop computing. We've been waiting really for decades for networks and CPUs to get good enough that it's actually viable for a real good experience on the client end. And when we finally get there, the NSA and others are here pissing all over the party. I hope that some day there is a full accounting of the enormous economic damage caused by the reckless, dangerous people in charge of these organizations.
- d23 13y ago
  > How sad that this is launching after the NSA scandal has pretty much ensured it will fail, and perhaps can't be achieved for decades. I honestly doubt 99% of consumers care, since the NSA isn't concerned with their business. That's not to say that attitude is right or wrong, but it's probably the last thing on most peoples' minds.
  - dmix 13y ago
    > I honestly doubt 99% of consumers care, since the NSA isn't concerned with their business. The NSA is hardly the only organization/party who could exploit a service like this. Every local police force could get a warrant to search your personal computer data without you ever knowing. I recently attended a talk on wiretaps by a lawyer recently, and when there is an investigation going on, police used to tap 1-2 cellphones a few years ago. Now 50+ people at a time are brought up on a warrant. Including a lot of people who aren't related to the crime (for ex. the targets mother). So who is the "1%" of that 99%? Who should care about their privacy? How do consumers know they aren't in that 1%? The answer is they can't and they don't know. But ultimately, they just don't care. Until it: A) affects them personally (or to someone they know), B) someone explains why it matters (if they have a technical knowledge gap) C) widely publicized examples of abuses become part of mainstream news Those three combined could eventually become widespread enough to destroy services like this. But right now, yes, the risk is still minimal in terms of public perception.
    - 13y ago
jebblue 13y ago
This looks interesting, definitely going to look into it. $35 // month doesn't sound too bad, just not sure why I wouldn't just fire up a VM on my local machine which has 16 Gigs RAM. $15 would be more palatable for a 3.5 Gig VM.
Harelin 13y ago
Question: If someone runs a process on their Amazon WorkSpace and then disconnects from it, does that process continue running? Does the WorkSpace stay online (like a VPS) or is disconnecting equivalent to shutting your computer down?
- alleinstern 13y ago
  When you come back, you will see exactly the same screen as when you disconnect it. Your process will continue running.
wcchandler 13y ago
Wow. These two announcements from Amazon today have been really interesting. I work at a community college and we're constantly investigating VDI and vApp solutions. With the heavy push towards a more cloud-ready infrastructure, it'll be interesting to see how our upper management approaches this platform. A lot of our initial hardware costs have to deal with planning for spikes in usage. At any given time we may only see 10% use -- but come the end of the semester -- that could very well jump to 10x our average load. And we have to have the hardware allocated for that. It's a balancing act between how much we can expect and how much we can feasibly budget. I can see this being a huge win for education. We have a department that oversees all IT related tasks. They also chip in occasionally to help establish foundations for best practices and unite all the community colleges on single platforms (email, learning management software, internet services, etc.). This might be right up their alley.
aheilbut 13y ago
I use NX / Nomachine quite a bit, and while it generally works, the latency is still annoying. It'd be nice if there was a better way to transparently synchronize an entire VM and run things locally, since CPU and storage are so cheap.
kayoone 13y ago
Recently with all the advancements in this space (PCoIP) i started wondering if this is the future of personal computing ? Going back to mainframes and just connecting a thin client to your desktop from wherever you are and whatever device to find your desktop as you left it. And if wed have this, would Web Applications still make sense ? This would kind of collide with the concept and long term vision of something like ChromeOS for example. Id love to see/have a discussion on this somehow.
outside1234 13y ago
how do I use it on my plane ride to Seattle? or honestly, even in just the hotel?
anoncowherd 13y ago
I've learned to ignore all new tech offerings from Amazon - they're all US-only anyway. It's like the rest of the world doesn't exist to them.
psaintla 13y ago
I always hate reading about services like this because I work in the medical industry and something like this would be unbelievably beneficial but will never be implemented because no sane company would ever sign a business associates agreement with the fines that they would get if there was a breach.
sseveran 13y ago
The really big news. Excel. On. The. iPad.
thrush 13y ago
Please forgive what may sound like an ignorant comment: What if we ignored the NSA and security issues to think about the potential for new technology like this. If you never had to locally own your data, what could be possible? How light could laptops become? We would no longer need as big of a hard drive and processor, and could probably reduce weight in lots of other ways. And how many number of machines could you reduce to? Not only could two people share the same machine really easily, but you could access your personal workspace, work workspace, and any additional workspace with basically the same machine.
sdnguyen90 13y ago
Any info on the bandwidth? Looks like it might be a good alternative for businesses in areas without a great selection of telco providers

484 points by jamesjyu 13y ago

at 12 seconds in the video: "How come these virtual desktops are about as common as bacon in a vegan sunday brunch" ha ha!

ocfx 13y ago
I love bacon!

lukeqsee 13y ago

If latency becomes a non-issue (ever tried using remote desktop or even SSH over a high-latency connection?), I think this stands a very good chance of succeeding and making IT's job much easier.

nicholassmith 13y ago
Latency would be my biggest concern with the service, sometimes even an X11-over-ssh session on a local network can be incredibly slow to use, putting it across the internet doesn't do much to help.
- kayoone 13y ago
  X11 over ssh is really slow. Windows RDP, VNC or Teamviewer are generally pretty fast to the point where it makes almost no difference to the normal Desktop user.
  - csmuk 13y ago
    Spot on, though outlook 2013 is a piece of crap over RDP
  - lvillani 13y ago
    In my experience on a Gbit LAN, RDP is really fast, VNC and TeamViewer, not so much. I'm connected to a Windows 7 machine via RDP and to a Mac via VNC (even though I used to use TeamViewer) with Remmina on Ubuntu.
  - nicholassmith 13y ago
    VNC in my experience is usually quite effected by latency as well, RDP was always reasonably solid which works well for most corporate concerns.
  - greedo 13y ago
    We've completely given up on X11 and moved to NoMachine...
  - luma 13y ago
    This solution is utilizing PCoIP[1] which is a very mature protocol that can support things like video streaming, adaptive compression, and remote USB device passthrough. It's nothing like VNC or X11, and I have a number of customers running thousands of users with it. VMware also licensed this protocol for their View product and it's been very successful in that space. While I generally prefer the ICA/HDX stack for VDI use, PCoIP is pretty damn nice and it's a great choice for this kind of offering. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teradici#PCoIP_Protocol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teradici#PCoIP_Protocol
    - JunkDNA 13y ago
      I second this. The protocol is incredibly fast, even over a cellular connection when zipping down the rail line on Amtrak. On a LAN I can use VMware PCoIP on an Apple Cinema Display and there is zero lag (hard to test the Cinema Display on Amtrak!). I don't know what black magic they use under the hood, but it's the only remote protocol I've ever used that didn't make me want to throw my computer out the window.
      - kayoone 13y ago
        Sounds interesting, i wonder if something like this will replace home computing in the future. How is the performance when watching videos or playing some casual game, does that still work ?
        JunkDNA 13y ago
        I haven't done any gaming with it, but web video played in the browser works the same as locally. I haven't tried any full screen stuff like movies though. For regular application usage there is no perceptible lag for things like scrolling, editing, highlighting, etc...
ghshephard 13y ago
Completely off topic, but regarding SSH over a high latency connection - it's actually remarkably good as long you don't have loss on your link. I'm currently working with a client in Singapore that requires that I connect to their data center through a B2B L2L IPSec tunnel that is sourced in California. So, From Singapore, I connect to the VPN concentrator in California, and then from there, connect to the clients site in Singapore. So, every keystroke that goes to a server approximately 100 meters from me, Starts off in Singapore, crosses the ocean to California, comes back to Singapore, returns back to California, Comes back to Singapore again. I do this for about 8-10 hours a day - completely workable. Oh, and the Connection to the internet that my VPN connection rides on is a 3G modem, no less.
- mjallday 13y ago
  I've done this before too (even down to it being a SG -> CA link!). I think the best practise is to automate. Waiting on individual key presses to be echoed back when there is latency is incredibly frustrating, a slight delay while a shell script runs is completely unnoticeable.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    I think a lot depends on how good of a typist you are. If you can confidently type fast, it's no problem. If you're prone to typos, latency can be unbelievably aggravating.
gonzo 13y ago
have you tried mosh? (http://mosh.mit.edu http://mosh.mit.edu)

zengr 13y ago

Looks like an exciting product with endless possibilities! This literally makes chromeOS redundant.

amaks 13y ago
Actually, it's the opposite - users can buy cheap chromebooks and access virtual desktops running in AWS from them instead of buying more expensive Windows laptops.

iaskwhy 13y ago

Seems like a competitor to Citrix, isn't it?

stefek99 13y ago
Ex-Citrix employee here... Sounds exactly like Citrix unless it is a partnership: http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/global-solution-providers/citrix/ http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/global-solution-providers/ci... "As an extension of its ongoing collaboration with Amazon, Citrix is now delivering its innovative networking and desktop virtualization solutions from AWS."

noir_lord 13y ago

Feel like your company isn't giving enough data to the NSA/GCHQ? Introducing Amazon WorkSpaces.

octo_t 13y ago
Am I the only one who is getting annoyed at these zero effort sky is falling NSA comments? Every single damn submission on the front page has some meaningless hand wringing over the exact same issue and it is 100% unproductive.
- greendata 13y ago
  I agree they aren't productive. However, the fact that we keep hearing about it, especially from those not from the US, is informative. There is a German IT manager posting about how he's like to use this but can't due to the NSA spying. The NSA is taking money and markets out of our hands and may cause products like this to fail.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    No, there is a German IT manager posting about how he can't use it due to EU data protection laws. Nothing to do with NSA spying. Intelligent discussion about the issues of cloud computing, including data protection laws and spying, is useful and welcome. But posts that basically boil down to "LOL NSA" are not intelligent.
    - andrewcooke 13y ago
      did you read his detailed response abut safe harbour? i thought "it is now clear" was a direct reference to NSA. is it not? see here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6727500 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6727500
      - mikeash 13y ago
        You're right, my bad. My overall point remains: intelligent discussion like that is great, "LOL NSA" is not.

l0c0b0x 13y ago

Holy mother of god! I've been managing full 2,000 virtual desktops and about 100 servers... I've been looking for a way out! (out of licen$ing/$oul agreement with MS and VMWare). Of course latency would be an issue, I wonder what solutions they have for low/limited-capacity clients.

caw 13y ago
It says it's powered by PCoIP. I've tested one of the PCoIP hardware thin clients before, and it works really well across a WAN. An employee ran from his home a graphically intensive 3D render application at 1920x1080 on one of the EVGA thin clients. We didn't test it across a 3G connection or anything like that.
l0c0b0x 13y ago
Yikes! Just looked at the pricing: http://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/pricing/ http://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/pricing/ Talk about high TCO! (yes, you still need the hardware to run this service). With office going online now, I'm wondering what their strategy is. This is really not what I was expecting.
- luma 13y ago
  Excluding your endpoints, do you have a current cost accounting of the entire infrastructure capex, opex, software licensing, and any professional services behind your existing 2000 seats? I work extensively in this field and the numbers they are throwing out are extremely competitive with existing on-premises View or XenDesktop implementations I've been involved with.
  - l0c0b0x 13y ago
    We're running on 4-5yr old hardware... and our maintenance contracts, even though high wouldn't amount the yearly costs to use this service. This is at least a decent option if you're planning on new infrastructure.
    - 13y ago

sker 13y ago

If you could spin up an instance for an hour, this would be useful to those who want to buy from US stores that block by IP (cough Nexus 5 cough), but don't want to go the VPN route.

phelmig 13y ago
Use a proxy server.
throwaway1979 13y ago
I can think of a bunch of other use cases. E.g. Student spinning up an instance to work on an essay or powerpoint presentation. But yes, it looks like the pricing is not by the hour :(
thematt 13y ago
You can already do that with normal EC2 and for a lot cheaper too because you could use a spot instance.
crazysim 13y ago
You can do this now. Just fire up an instance and blow it away. I once used it to download a Steam game and tunnel it through a non-quota-counting path back to my computer.
baruch 13y ago
Still need a US credit card :-(

jeffbarr 13y ago

There's more information in my post at http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2013/11/amazon-workspaces-desktop-computing-in-the-cloud.html http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2013/11/amazon-workspaces-desktop... [Fixed]

kroger 13y ago
This one seems to be about WorkSpaces: http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2013/11/amazon-workspaces-desktop-computing-in-the-cloud.html http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2013/11/amazon-workspaces-desktop... The one you linked is about AppStream
- jeffbarr 13y ago
  Fixed, not all parts of my brain are thread-safe.
  - cstejerean 13y ago
    The information under "WorkSpaces Feature Set" for Performance appears to be wrong, at least compared to http://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/pricing/ http://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/pricing/ It currently says: Performance - 1 vCPU, 3.75 GiB of memory, and 100 GB of persistent user storage. I believe it should be: Performance - 2 vCPU, 7.5 GiB of memory, and 100 GB of persistent user storage.
    - jeffbarr 13y ago
      The blog post was wrong. Fixed, and thanks!
danso 13y ago
Sorry to be the jerk. Small error in an opening paragraph (probably from a last-minute edit): > Your users can access the applications, documents, and intranet resources that they need to __get their done__, all from the comfort of their desktop computer, laptop, iPad, or Android tablet. Otherwise, thank you for the detailed write up... I almost never watch launch/demo videos

peteretep 13y ago

> Amazon WorkSpaces clients are available for both Windows and Mac computers as well as for the iPad, Kindle Fire, and Android tablets. How am I saving on licensing cost then? If I can install the client on a Linux machine, it makes sense. If I need an Apple or a Windows machine I'm ... double licensing?

thematt 13y ago
I don't think the objective is to save on licensing costs. I think it's to save on hardware and possibly deployment costs. Also, the primary use case seems to be using a thin client.
- peteretep 13y ago
  Be nice to though, and it seems like it should be an easy thing...
pkulak 13y ago
This could be an awesome option for Chromebooks too. Shame they're only targeting large IT departments.
- vnchr 13y ago
  Would be nice if Amazon had their own Chromebook equivalent stripped down for this use case. Maybe soon. Kindle XL HD Flamethrower Lappytop.
- wonderyak 13y ago
  It seems like a marriage made in heaven to me.
mmahemoff 13y ago
I don't see them touting it as saving licenses. BUT presumably you can save by making these floating instances. If you have 1000 workers using software locally, you need 1000 licenses. If you have 1000 workers using software in the cloud, but only 100 at any time, you only need 100 licenses.

Keyframe 13y ago

Thin Client v2. Just recently there was this: http://www.cgchannel.com/2013/11/new-autodesk-initiative-puts-max-and-maya-in-your-browser/ http://www.cgchannel.com/2013/11/new-autodesk-initiative-put...

dharma1 13y ago
i've been looking for something like this for a while. Have you tried it? Octane renderer can produce some great results but wondering about the cloud GPU rendering cost
- Keyframe 13y ago
  I haven't tried it. I'm mostly interested in how does it (and other GPU renderers) deal with larger scenes due to constrained GPU memory.

frewsxcv 13y ago

No desktop Linux options? :(

killerpopiller 13y ago

Sigh, grumpy german privacy data protection consultant here. Can't be used in G. for the same reasons MS Office 365 is off limits, sensitive personal and business data don't belong in non german-hosted clouds. One part of me wants that easy carefree cloud life, the other part doesn't want to feed the US-overlord anymore with our precious informations.

mey 13y ago
Legally or due to your privacy concerns? Just looking for clarification on your statement of "Can't" if that is a personal preference or legal obligation for government/corporations doing business locally.
- SpikeGronim 13y ago
  Legally, due to the EU Data Protection Directive. It's a legal obligation.
- nisa 13y ago
  Legal concerns. I'm not a lawyer but there are quite strict rules. Here is an example based on Google Analytics (first Google hit): http://www.searchlaboratory.com/blog/2013/06/germanys-data-protection-laws/ http://www.searchlaboratory.com/blog/2013/06/germanys-data-p...
- Silhouette 13y ago
  There is a general, Europe-wide restriction on exporting personal data outside of the EEA to somewhere that doesn't provide an acceptable level of protection (which by default the United States does not). There is also a Safe Harbor scheme that is intended to overcome this problem so working with US businesses is still possible if they provide additional safeguards. However, it's now clear that no business operating in the United States can actually offer the required guarantees, no matter how sincerely they might wish to. It is therefore unclear whether a European business relying on Safe Harbor to cover its rear would actually have much of a case in court if one of its customers were actually damaged as a result. I've seen a lot of businesses at least considering pulling out of US services, cloud or otherwise, for this reason in recent months. Some are sticking with it, on the grounds that there is safety in numbers: no government regulator really wants to damage global trade by making examples of businesses who are just trying to do their work and acting in good faith, and if you're dealing with a similarly honest business from the US then the odds of an actual customer complaint are probably low enough that it might be considered an acceptable business risk. Others seem to have lawyers who are more wary and fear the penalties of something like a mass leak across the pond that would come back to bite their clients back home. In addition, some nations in Europe are a lot more concerned about privacy both legally and culturally than the US, for obvious historical reasons if nothing else, and they may have stronger laws still.

felixrieseberg 13y ago

As a microsoft employee: Windows 7? Windows Server 2008? INTERNET EXPLORER _9_? What is this? A virtual desktop service for time travellers?

gte910h 13y ago
Many corporations lag the bleeding edge significantly. It really hurts when CUSTOM_SOFTWARE_X doesn't work on the newest and greatest. Then, after that happens, they have to retrain everyone on the changes.
amaks 13y ago
You'll be surprised, but most of enterprises use XP and Windows 7. They don't use Windows 8.x for variety of reasons: cost of education, existing OS is good enough, their intranet web sites designed against IE8/9.
tghw 13y ago
Come on, you know better than this. Microsoft has given everyone good reason to be skeptical of every other Windows version. XP? Solid. Vista? Nope. 7? Solid. 8? Off to a rocky start...
- scholia 13y ago
  He's referring to the out-of-date and inferior version of Internet Explorer (hence his use of caps). They could have installed IE10 or IE11 -- which are good. I can't think of a good reason for installing IE9, though maybe someone will come up with one...
  - wvenable 13y ago
    Some of our internal corporate apps require IE9 as IE10 presents compatibility issues. I'm not at all surprised that it IE9 is part of the baseline.
    - scholia 13y ago

kevrone 13y ago

"All WorkSpaces Bundles provide the Windows 7 Experience to users (provided by Windows Server 2008 R2)"

phelmig 13y ago

The NSA is gonna love this. I think their timing is quite bad. I doubt many non-us companies will start to move a big part of their infrastructure to the cloud of a US company right now. On the other hand for smaller businesses that don't have to fear espionage this could be a really cheap way to lower costs.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

mikey_p 13y ago

This looks awesome. I don't think latency will be much of an issue either. Years ago I worked on a training system that allowed users to launch the NXClient directly from a training website and run labs on EC2 instances and even from the west coast I could write code on a US East instance very comfortably, without any noticeable lag.

qhien1000 13y ago

It looks like the combination of TeamViewer and Virtual Machine.

fra 13y ago

Sunray, is that you?

fragmede 13y ago
'cept Sunray is no more: "In July 2013, reports circulated that Oracle was ending the development of Sun Ray, and related products.[4] Scott McNealy (long-time CEO of Sun) tweeted about this.[5] An official announcement was made August 1, 2013, with a last order in February 2014.[2]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Ray#cite_ref-eol_2-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Ray#cite_ref-eol_2-1
techprotocol 13y ago
Sunray as a service!
msh 13y ago
I used sunray's at university around 2001-2004. I actually remember them quite fondly.

ljosa 13y ago

If these can be rented by the hour, it could be a good way to get Windows machines for testing websites with various versions of Internet Explorer and testing emails with various versions of Outlook. I know that EC2 and Rackspace has Windows machines, but only with Windows Server. When I have tried that, there is always something funny, such as IE security settings that are different from those of desktop Windows installs. For now, I have settled on having local Windows installs (free licenses through BizSpark) in VirtualBox.

afandian 13y ago
http://www.modern.ie/en-us/virtualization-tools http://www.modern.ie/en-us/virtualization-tools
- ljosa 13y ago
  Wow, that is fantastic—both BrowserStack.com and the prepackaged virtual machines.
techprotocol 13y ago
As per http://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/details/ http://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/details/, the workspace bundles provide the Windows 7 Experience to users (provided by Windows Server 2008 R2).

xdd 13y ago

Let's merge information,BI and decision strategy in Prism network, forever backup.

toddmorey 13y ago

I can see this really helping with the BYOD revolution that's happening in enterprise. There's been an increasingly awkward mix of personal use and data with computers meant for corporate work. Virtual Desktops done well can really help here. I can see more companies providing funds to employees to buy the device they prefer instead of provisioning a machine for each employee (ours does that already). Then the computer can be used locally for personal needs and through the virtual desktop for work. Though as I've been traveling more lately, I can see how the need for a persistent, high-quality internet connection can be an issue in the field.

watty 13y ago
I could buy a new laptop every year compared to the $75/month fee.
- rrrhys 13y ago
  And licenses?

blahbl4hblahtoo 13y ago

I know that some of you guys have some issues with hosting data in US datacenters...but I have to tell you...I'm so fed up with IT. I'm actually sitting on hold with a major "all hands" issue with our IT department... I've done this for years...maybe 20 years at this point. I can tell you this..."We" (meaning everyone in IT) don't do desktop management well AT ALL. I can't remember the last time I used a corporate baseline. They take 10 minutes to SHUTDOWN. (That's private industry...government is worse.) I don't know why users put up with it and it makes me realize why everyone hates Windows. (The average baseline literally forces it to stink like a rotting fish.) Couple that with networking guys that are useless at telling you anything other than "its up"...ITS ALWAYS THE FIREWALL. Almost everyone that I work with just doesn't get how precarious their position actually is...if people don't want to use the sh!t that you work on you just might find yourself screwed at some point. I work in IT and I would use something like this in a HEARTBEAT if it meant getting better boot times and less "what port is open" bs. It seems to me that most people in IT actually think that the servers are more important than the people using them. Thanks for putting up with this little rant...

Iftheshoefits 13y ago
Moving your systems to "the cloud" won't change any of the problems you identify. It will just shift where they occur.
- overgryphon 13y ago
  But it will. The "cloud" will eventually replace corporate IT departments. Most companies don't want an IT department, it's a necessary headache and cost center that they only deal with when it gets in the way. Moving where the problems occur to a single "cloud" company that develops the expertise to solve these problems once for each of their corporate clients is a large improvement. Companies will simply pay for cloud IT services that manage desktops, provide servers, and most importantly take care of maintenance and updates at a much cheaper total cost.
  - couradical 13y ago

thatthatis 13y ago

If they had a version of this where I could rent photoshop by the hour I'd be elated. (I know these are billed monthly, I saw that, I'm wishing for two changes simultaneously)

JoeAltmaier 13y ago

Seems like a small range of performance. 1 vCPU? Does that mean one hyperthread? What is that, a Pentium 4 or something? Where are the i7 instances? I don't see a developer finding this useful at all.

jrmcauliffe 13y ago
Facebook is the most resource hungry app in a lot of workplaces...
- JoeAltmaier 13y ago
  They talk 'developer'. That's not screwing around of facebook.

robgough 13y ago

For companies that trust giant corporations more than their employees. Fortunately for amazon, I think there's probably plenty of those companies out there.

tmsh 13y ago

They should combine their delivery services and provide what I thought they were providing (this is still pretty cool but just saying): Provisioning and renting out multiple devices, controlled via the AWS console (with some sort of address delivery form and ability to rent out devices, installed with a particular image). I.e., allowing auto-provisioning to extend truly to the consumer space.

Tomdarkness 13y ago

How powerful is the 1 vCPU? If it is anything like 1 EC2 compute unit then I don't see this being useful for anything more than basic office work (i.e MS Office). Plus if I already need a computer running OS X or Windows then why would I want to pay again for renting a Windows license (As in, the monthly cost will include the cost of the Windows license)? How would the specs of the Amazon WorkSpace compare to the existing Windows or Mac Desktop PC? It might be more useful if I could use a thin client running some barebones Linux distro to access the remote workspace.

superuser2 13y ago
This is not for you, it's for an IT department with a nontrivial number of desktops. You pay again because centralizing users on a single machine that you can update/troubleshoot/fix/install software on once is often more cost-efficient than trying to manage 1000 autonomous Windows desktops.
- Tomdarkness 13y ago
  I know it is not designed for people like me, else I'd be asking where the Linux options are ;) I don't work with a company that has a large IT deployment anymore but when I did their processes was not that different. They had a single image that was on every single PC and contained "standard" software. If there was any kind of problem with the machine, they'd just reimage it remotely (PXE) and if it still had problems they'd just send the machine back to Dell and get a replacement. Although management/maintenance was not really my point. Rather, if you already have functional working machines with Windows / OS X (or have to purchase them) then Amazon WorkSpaces seems expensive. If it was accessible via some cheap thin client that did not require a separate client OS license (+ the hardware that comes with machines ables to run Windows / OS X) then it would seem more appropriate.
  - superuser2 13y ago
    This is common, but Virtual Desktop Infrastructure is increasingly common currently. The only novel thing about Amazon's program is that the server is in EC2 instead of the corporate server closet. As I understand it, some of the motivators are: 1) The image is immutable (by normal users). Each startup is clean, so the potential to screw up your install is very low. Only user folders (redirected to network storage via GPO) persist. 2) You can indeed use thin clients, i.e. http://www.neweggbusiness.com/Product/Product.aspx?gclid=CITWr57V4roCFQVgMgodfl4AMQ&Item=9B-59-222-087&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleBiz&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleBiz-_-pla-_-Thin+Client+Systems-_-9B-59-222-087&ef_id=UoPpowAABNx6jQGo:20131113210539:s http://www.neweggbusiness.com/Product/Product.aspx?gclid=CIT... with VDI. You can also use old/underpowered/very cheap PCs. 3) Unlike an RDP setup, each user has their own OS instance so you don't have concurrency issues. 4) Windows Server and User/Device CALs are indeed very expensive. However, license costs for the clients are not even slightly relevant because mainstream desktop/laptop hardware comes with mandatory OEM licensing anyway and large businesses are not typically building their own PCs.

JunkDNA 13y ago

I'm wondering what customers they are targeting this to? A lot of big companies who would care about data on laptops probably have an equally kneejerk reaction to data in the cloud. You could argue it's for small companies. But they have to be a certain size before something like this starts to make sense. I don't do desktop support IT kinds of things, so perhaps I'm being a bit too sweeping in my generalization?

deleted_account 13y ago
Outsourcing. Rows upon rows of software developers are sitting in Shenzhen right now working on virtual desktops based in the US.
- olalonde 13y ago
  Where do you make the connection between "virtual desktops" and outsourcing? Also, who are those Shenzhen developers and who are they working for?
  - deleted_account 13y ago
    It was SOP when I was working with off-shore devs. Some linkz: http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/Total-Economic-Impact-VDI.pdf http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/Total-Economic-Impact-VDI.pd... http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns340/ns1176/collaboration/Cisco_IT_Case_Study_VXI.pdf http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns340/ns1176... http://goo.gl/a1Tlqp http://goo.gl/a1Tlqp And who are these developers working for? I dunno, read any news stories about companies out-sourcing IT to China and India in the past ten years?

atmosx 13y ago

Thing with Amazon is that when it enters a market segment, it drives the price at a point where no competition can stand in the long run. That said, that's a service I don't understand who would wanna use. There's no place like 127.0.0.1 (or ::1)

ignostic 13y ago

This would be a great option for the many individuals who use their computers for nothing but productivity and browsing. You wouldn't need to buy Office and a new computer up front, and theoretically you can stay up-to-date without buying an entirely new laptop. You'd just need to buy a lightweight device (similar to a Chromebook) with a screen. Of course they don't even support Chrome right now (IE and FF only), but the idea would be solid for almost anyone who doesn't game or need low-latency computing.

lambada 13y ago
Actually, the client for accessing these desktops is a standalone app, that requires Windows, OSX, Android (incl. Kindle Fire) or iPad.
- RockyMcNuts 13y ago
  hmmh... can't access from a client running Linux, ChromeOS, Android-X86? largely defeats the purpose if you still need a PC, license.

spitfire 13y ago

So what's the over under on them creating a Ubuntu workspaces sooner or later? That coupled with EC2 based infrastructure could make for a very compelling platform.

mberning 13y ago

They really seem to be pushing the corporate compliance / data security aspect of this, but it feels like a roundabout way of solving that problem, and in some cases, may even make it worse. Which is more dangerous? Having corporate data on a thoroughly locked down laptop, or having corporate data on a miserable cloud desktop which makes the user desperate to move the data local (dropbox, email, etc.) This is a very cool service, I just don't think the data security and compliance argument is a very good one. Unless they have some way of making sure that data can not possibly leave the virtual environment.

fintler 13y ago

I remember building something similar for a class project as part of my undergrad degree. It was basically a website where you could sign up for a virtual desktop and use the nx protocol (https://www.nomachine.com/ https://www.nomachine.com/) web browser plugin (it felt like there was no latency) to view the remote desktop. We supported Ubuntu Gutsy and Windows XP SP2. It worked great on those little Eee things that were popular at the time -- access to a desktop environment with a quad core on an Eee. This was around 2007-2008 or so, so it's tough to find anything that still remains from the project -- we sucked at marketing and didn't really get a userbase, so it died off. Here's a few docs from it that still remain online: http://www.cis.temple.edu/~wolfgang/c4339s08/WebDesc/ http://www.cis.temple.edu/~wolfgang/c4339s08/WebDesc/

airencracken 13y ago

Thin clients. Everything old is new again.

dmead 13y ago

nice try, nsa

ChuckMcM 13y ago

This is an interesting counter to ChromeOS/Chromebooks. Basically Amazon has a 'what your are familiar with, except in the cloud' as opposed to 'this new thing but it's cloud based.' The demerits for both are that you lose the cloud and you're down, someone gains access and you are compromised. So many baked in assumptions in IT about how the local workstation is local. I wonder what it does to business internet prices too.

amalag 13y ago
Well they can also make money by selling the thin client which the ChromeOS is good for.
- DonGateley 13y ago
  Huh? Does a ChromeOS client exist for Workspaces or is it just "good for" it whatever that means?
  - amalag 13y ago
    I assumed it was RDP, but it is PCoIP. ChromeOS does not have that client software right now.
6cxs2hd6 13y ago
Actually a killer combination is this (or a more-affordable VPS) _plus_ a Chromebook. You can SSH into your Linux desktop to do programming and heavy computing, and use web apps. If you need some GUI, you do a web app on your server and connect to it from the browser on your Chromebook. (Instead of a full-on remote desktop VNC.) This is a really nice way to work. And your Chromebook is disposable/wipe-able. It's basically a terminal. Welcome to 1970, but with the web app twist. And of course you can SSH/browse into that same server from whatever else, too. Like a tablet, a full laptop, or even a desktop.

gdulli 13y ago

Is this the continuation of the beginning of the end of low-latency client computing? It's bad enough already that my company is on Google Apps and I'm forced to use Gmail and Docs instead of Outlook/Exchange and Word/Excel.

lectrick 13y ago

Amazon Windows Workspaces

ojiikun 13y ago

Interesting. I already use an EC2 instance for exactly this (running Debian) and it has been a great way to work. My laptop only needs to be powerful enough to run an ssh client and X server and then the instance does all the heavy lifting of running applications (in this case, mostly compiling code). It is beyond cool being able to scale the hardware up/down depending on how nasty my current project's build is. Even better is that I can ssh in and do basic work from any computer than has an ssh client. Emergency one-line patch from my smartphone? Fuck yeah! Pricing of the new desktop instances looks a little high compared to reserved instances of similar power, but I imagine that is the MSFT tax at work.

simonebrunozzi 13y ago
Please post an how-to. Most of them are now outdated. I would love to see it.
peatmoss 13y ago
I've thought about going this route. Somewhere along the line I found "mosh" which might be useful to you if you're working at the terminal a bunch. I solves the typing latency issue as well as a host of platform specific terminal emulation issues.
jrmcauliffe 13y ago
Looks pretty good compared to the 'On Demand' instances though, even including the MS and (I assume) Teradici licensing. Somewhere in between On Demand on Reserved. If you can script yo sh!t together, spot instances is where it's at..

workhere-io 13y ago

Cool! NSA's industrial espionage is so much easier for them to perform when you store your company data directly on American servers. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying-brazil-oil-petrobras http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying-braz... http://www.dw.de/germany-fears-nsa-stole-industrial-secrets/a-16925289 http://www.dw.de/germany-fears-nsa-stole-industrial-secrets/... http://www.globalresearch.ca/nsa-busted-conducting-industrial-espionage-in-france-mexico-brazil-china-and-all-around-the-world/5355026 http://www.globalresearch.ca/nsa-busted-conducting-industria...

ams6110 13y ago
Likely easier for them to penetrate a typical corporate network than Amazon's
- JTon 13y ago
  Unless Amazon is secretly in bed with them as well
  - fidotron 13y ago
    Amazon are building the CIA a cloud, so they'll at least be talking.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  CIA contracts don't come cheap.
micampe 13y ago
Dear HN, can we please reduce the frequency of the same inane NSA wits in every single discussion? If there are new informations or interesting opinions I’m glad to read them, but repeating ”NSA! ah-ah!” in every single article doesn’t add anything or help anyone. Awareness is already very good in these quarters, I think any HN user knows the situation and has formed an opinion about whether to assume that every communication is tapped or how much encryption is sufficient for their case. Thank you.

aet 13y ago

Can someone give some use cases?

runewell 13y ago

This is nice, finally a company large enough to push out a heavy adoption of thin clients.

alinspired 13y ago

Very interesting if amazon will drive Cloud Desktop, DaaS and virtual desktop to wider adoption or prove it's not quite needed today

zmmmmm 13y ago

How sad that this is launching after the NSA scandal has pretty much ensured it will fail, and perhaps can't be achieved for decades. This is almost certainly the most efficient and optimal way to do desktop computing. We've been waiting really for decades for networks and CPUs to get good enough that it's actually viable for a real good experience on the client end. And when we finally get there, the NSA and others are here pissing all over the party. I hope that some day there is a full accounting of the enormous economic damage caused by the reckless, dangerous people in charge of these organizations.

d23 13y ago
> How sad that this is launching after the NSA scandal has pretty much ensured it will fail, and perhaps can't be achieved for decades. I honestly doubt 99% of consumers care, since the NSA isn't concerned with their business. That's not to say that attitude is right or wrong, but it's probably the last thing on most peoples' minds.
- dmix 13y ago
  > I honestly doubt 99% of consumers care, since the NSA isn't concerned with their business. The NSA is hardly the only organization/party who could exploit a service like this. Every local police force could get a warrant to search your personal computer data without you ever knowing. I recently attended a talk on wiretaps by a lawyer recently, and when there is an investigation going on, police used to tap 1-2 cellphones a few years ago. Now 50+ people at a time are brought up on a warrant. Including a lot of people who aren't related to the crime (for ex. the targets mother). So who is the "1%" of that 99%? Who should care about their privacy? How do consumers know they aren't in that 1%? The answer is they can't and they don't know. But ultimately, they just don't care. Until it: A) affects them personally (or to someone they know), B) someone explains why it matters (if they have a technical knowledge gap) C) widely publicized examples of abuses become part of mainstream news Those three combined could eventually become widespread enough to destroy services like this. But right now, yes, the risk is still minimal in terms of public perception.
  - 13y ago

jebblue 13y ago

This looks interesting, definitely going to look into it. $35 // month doesn't sound too bad, just not sure why I wouldn't just fire up a VM on my local machine which has 16 Gigs RAM. $15 would be more palatable for a 3.5 Gig VM.

Harelin 13y ago

Question: If someone runs a process on their Amazon WorkSpace and then disconnects from it, does that process continue running? Does the WorkSpace stay online (like a VPS) or is disconnecting equivalent to shutting your computer down?

alleinstern 13y ago
When you come back, you will see exactly the same screen as when you disconnect it. Your process will continue running.

wcchandler 13y ago

Wow. These two announcements from Amazon today have been really interesting. I work at a community college and we're constantly investigating VDI and vApp solutions. With the heavy push towards a more cloud-ready infrastructure, it'll be interesting to see how our upper management approaches this platform. A lot of our initial hardware costs have to deal with planning for spikes in usage. At any given time we may only see 10% use -- but come the end of the semester -- that could very well jump to 10x our average load. And we have to have the hardware allocated for that. It's a balancing act between how much we can expect and how much we can feasibly budget. I can see this being a huge win for education. We have a department that oversees all IT related tasks. They also chip in occasionally to help establish foundations for best practices and unite all the community colleges on single platforms (email, learning management software, internet services, etc.). This might be right up their alley.

aheilbut 13y ago

I use NX / Nomachine quite a bit, and while it generally works, the latency is still annoying. It'd be nice if there was a better way to transparently synchronize an entire VM and run things locally, since CPU and storage are so cheap.

kayoone 13y ago

Recently with all the advancements in this space (PCoIP) i started wondering if this is the future of personal computing ? Going back to mainframes and just connecting a thin client to your desktop from wherever you are and whatever device to find your desktop as you left it. And if wed have this, would Web Applications still make sense ? This would kind of collide with the concept and long term vision of something like ChromeOS for example. Id love to see/have a discussion on this somehow.

outside1234 13y ago

how do I use it on my plane ride to Seattle? or honestly, even in just the hotel?

anoncowherd 13y ago

I've learned to ignore all new tech offerings from Amazon - they're all US-only anyway. It's like the rest of the world doesn't exist to them.

psaintla 13y ago

I always hate reading about services like this because I work in the medical industry and something like this would be unbelievably beneficial but will never be implemented because no sane company would ever sign a business associates agreement with the fines that they would get if there was a breach.

sseveran 13y ago

The really big news. Excel. On. The. iPad.

thrush 13y ago

Please forgive what may sound like an ignorant comment: What if we ignored the NSA and security issues to think about the potential for new technology like this. If you never had to locally own your data, what could be possible? How light could laptops become? We would no longer need as big of a hard drive and processor, and could probably reduce weight in lots of other ways. And how many number of machines could you reduce to? Not only could two people share the same machine really easily, but you could access your personal workspace, work workspace, and any additional workspace with basically the same machine.

sdnguyen90 13y ago

Any info on the bandwidth? Looks like it might be a good alternative for businesses in areas without a great selection of telco providers