New Technical Report: Deploying Edge-based Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

Carnegie Mellon University's (CMU) Virtual Andrew service uses VMware Horizon Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) in coursework, research, and administration. It provides pre-configured, no-install access to a variety of restricted-license applications, such as computer-aided design (CAD) tools. This service is typically used from on-campus computing clusters and faculty/student offices with LAN connectivity to CMU's private cloud. The Covid-19 pandemic forced most members of the university community to work from their homes, with highly-variable last-mile connectivity. The change from on-campus LAN-access to off-campus WAN-access exposed limitations of VDI as a remoting service. These limitations led to a three-way collaboration between VMware, the CMU Living Edge Lab, and CMU Computing Service to investigate how Edge Computing could enable a better VDI experience. This technical report discusses our learnings.

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