Source
r/msp•
TechBlizzard

Advice needed: A thin client and Azure VM for secure workstation as an experiment

I want to use a VM running in the cloud (Azure specifically, but other providers are OK too) to do my daily work as an experiment. I want to use a relatively low powered PC to act as a thin client to a much more powerful VM in the cloud. The main reason for this is that I want to play around with running client workstations in the cloud, for future proofing, security, and ease of management. Also it's just fun to test out.

I have a fiber connection, my ping to 1.1.1.1 is 3ms and my bandwidth is 75Mbps. Since my ping is extremely low, I assume that my latency to the VM would be negligible. I assume this would give me excellent performance on the VM.

I want to use my 4k monitor, too. Maybe two 4k monitors.

I'm planning on:

  1. Setting up a VM in Azure on a D2-64 v3, which has 8vCPUs, 32GB RAM, 200GB storage. It's $0.75 an hour.

  2. Either connect straight to the VM via RDP, or use a VPN and then RDP in.

  3. Setting an auto shutdown procedure at 7PM every day to save money when I'm not using the VM at night.

Questions I have:

  • Would my experience of using the thin client and remote connection to the VM be identical to having a PC with the same specs as the VM on my desk?

  • How can I achieve exceptional performance so that it would be hard to distinguish my virtualized environment from having a powerful computer right next to me?

  • Can I use two 4k monitors in this setup and stream 4k video to my thin client?

  • Is there any problem with running a VM in Azure only for the hours I'm working, and turn it off when I'm done?

  • How would you secure the connection to the VM? I think I can use client certificates.

  • Is there anything that I'm missing?

Thanks for your advice! I am looking forward to discussing this with you all.

EDIT:

My thin client has a dual core processor from 2015, 4GB RAM and a 850 EVO SSD.

Posted Aug 4, 2018, 4:24 PM UTC

510
eNomineZerum•

I wrote quite a long response, reread it and decided to shorten it to this. Why? If you have something in Azure you have to remember to shut it off via the web GUI or PowerShell or scheduler to ensure you aren't charged during "off" time. Beyond that, there are 2000-2500 working hours in a year which equates to an expense of $1-1.5k. You can find surplus servers on eBay all the time that will match your specs for $500-800. Yea you will pay for electrical and the cost of an OS (assuming you use Windows) but at the end of the year you will have something that won't be a continued cost in years 2-5 assuming a 5 year refresh cycle. Even if you finance the cost of this server you will certainly be better off within two years.

With the exception of two 4k monitors I see nothing wrong with your strategy beyond the flawed idea of placing this in Azure. Ensure you place it in the Azure region closest to you, set a strong password, ACLs and preferable VPN. The only other gotcha is truly shutting down the VM to avoid charges will most likely cause you to lose your IP meaning that will be another step to check.

4
Pablohere•

Your graphics experience will be sub par, hopefully you never get the idea of playing any half decent video games off of it. Or you could go buy a NuC and save a ton of $ and have a better experience, have you considered that?

3
eNomineZerum•

I forgot to mention this in my post. Anytime you have a remote connection like that you're probably going to get a lot of artifacting from the compression algorithms. For most things it should work but if you're going to do anything that requires color accuracy or real-time streaming you will be lacking. If part of your day-to-day workflow is having YouTube up in the corner of the screen you will be out of luck. Even then some of those streaming protocols will have a 15 frames per second best case scenario. I would hate for OP to have some really nice 4K monitors he won't be getting his money's worth out of.

2
MicroFiefdom•

This is not really true anymore for design, cad and even many game genres. Test out Paperspace & Parsec for instance for gaming: it's pretty impressive as long as you don't play 1st person shooters or high skill level MoBa's etc

1
Pablohere•

Thanks for the comment, I work in this field and have used Citrix 3D Pro, paperspace, parsec, VMWare View and a few others and for the average Joe those configurations are still too complex, too bandwidth consuming, too internet reliant and not quite the same as a physical PC, as much as I wish they were already there.

1
MicroFiefdom•

I have a feeling we're agreeing, but just not communicating well. Your comment initially got my attention by mentioning subpar graphics, half decent video games......and then saying a Nuc would perform better.

Your graphics experience will be sub par, hopefully you never get the idea of playing any half decent video games off of it. Or you could go buy a NuC and save a ton of $ and have a better experience, have you considered that?

Nuc's have onboard video. Out of the probably hundreds Nuc models all have just Intel HD graphics except for the very recent model using Kaby Lake G that gives it an additional Vega gpu. That means all Nuc's except for the Kaby Lake G 'Nuc 8 VR' will not be able to play "half decent games", handle CAD, Solidworks etc. If we take Nuc as the baseline, then Cloud computing for graphically intense workloads has arrived. Even that single Nuc 8 VR is going to have issues with large CAD files since it only has a 4GB gpu. Likewise it's unlikely to be able to run Solidworks at all, or poorly if it does. Pit that against Paperspace Cloud systems with dedicated Quadro P5000 (16GB) or P6000 (24GB). And further Nuc's are barebones, so also too complex for the average joe to setup for themselves.

But that's what we're here for to setup the Nucs and Cloud workstations for our average joe users.

1
lenovoguy•

If you want to try it out, we offer a citrix - I can provide you a demo account for a few weeks at no cost to complete your testing

Like others, for a single user your better off using a desktop

2
nvisionit•

I'd suggest talking to u/dzhirov. He has built out an awesome VDI solution built on RDS and VMware Horizon, and has a white label channel partner program. There are quite a few of us around here that have jumped on board, as the solution is pretty awesome, and priced well. He can give you access to a Demo environment as well.

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dzhirov•

Thank you sir. OP feel free to reach out and schedule a demo. I can give you a tour of our enviorment as well as set you up with a demo enviorment to play with. We also offer NFR accounts to MSP partners for internal use. You can checkout https://adeptcloud.net

1
Tony-GetNerdio•

For MSP's who want to run their workload in Azure, take a look at Nerdio for Azure. Our tool helps price, provision, manage and optimize your workload in Azure so you don't have to. Here is a diagram of the basic setup that Nerdio auto provisions out of the box in under an hour. This is for a MSP who is currently selling Office365 and Azure through a CSP. But yeah, we have partners who spin up virtual desktops in RDS all the time. VDI however is better off done in a private cloud setting.

1