Alibaba Cloud quietly tests desktops-as-a-service
(2021/03/11)
- Reference: 1615442769
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/03/11/alibaba_elastic_desktop_service_daas/
- Source link:
Alibaba Cloud has quietly started a private beta of Elastic Desktop Service – a desktop-as-a-service offering.
The Chinese cloud leader has dribbled out information about the service in recent weeks. The Register has learned that the service offers clients for Windows and MacOS, and that those clients permit USB redirection so that peripherals connected to the remote machine are accessible to the cloudy desktop.
[1]
Alibaba says “Data is stored in the cloud rather than on local clients, and is displayed only as pixels by using encrypted remote protocols.” Which is pretty standard for remote desktops.
Pre-paid options will be available, but the service will also be offered on-demand with bills “accurate to the second and generated by hour.”
[2]
Pricing has not been revealed, Alibaba has not mentioned the OS the virtual desktops will run, the CPUs powering the service, network speeds, or whether storage will be SSD or spinning rust.
We do know that the company will offer seven different flavours of virtual desktop as follows.
Type
vCPU
Memory (GiB)
GPU
System disk (GiB)
Data disk (GiB)
Basic Office - A
1
2
None
80, 150
20, 70, 100, 150
Basic Office - B
2
4
None
80, 150
20, 70, 100, 150
Advanced Office - A
2
8
None
80, 150
20, 70, 100, 150
Advanced Office - B
4
16
None
80, 150
20, 70, 100, 150
Performance
8
32
None
80, 150
20, 70, 100, 150
Graphics
4
23
T4 × 0.25
150
150
Advanced Graphics
10
46
T4 × 0.5
150
150
Microsoft goes large with fifth Azure region in China [3]READ MORE
Integration with Active Directory will be offered, with Alibaba’s Resource Access Management (RAM) directory also an option.
The service appears to be spreading: documentation from late February said it was offered in four Chinese cities. The Register has since seen the service promoted as available in Alibaba’s Australian data centres.
Alibaba is far from first to offer virtual desktops. Amazon’s Workspaces and Azure Virtual Desktops are already in-market and offer more client options and integration with Microsoft Office that Alibaba does not currently match. It’s also possible to consume VMware’s Horizon or Citrix’s Virtual Desktops in multiple clouds.
[4]
But the new offering does mean that Alibaba has again matched its cloudy rivals, so as it marches into markets beyond China buyers will have one more reason to put it on their shopping lists. ®
Get our [5]Tech Resources
[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YEn4T1qDzwg5MVOsY@nQpQAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YEn4T1qDzwg5MVOsY@nQpQAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/08/microsoft_china_fourth_azure_region/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YEn4T1qDzwg5MVOsY@nQpQAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
The Chinese cloud leader has dribbled out information about the service in recent weeks. The Register has learned that the service offers clients for Windows and MacOS, and that those clients permit USB redirection so that peripherals connected to the remote machine are accessible to the cloudy desktop.
[1]
Alibaba says “Data is stored in the cloud rather than on local clients, and is displayed only as pixels by using encrypted remote protocols.” Which is pretty standard for remote desktops.
Pre-paid options will be available, but the service will also be offered on-demand with bills “accurate to the second and generated by hour.”
[2]
Pricing has not been revealed, Alibaba has not mentioned the OS the virtual desktops will run, the CPUs powering the service, network speeds, or whether storage will be SSD or spinning rust.
We do know that the company will offer seven different flavours of virtual desktop as follows.
Type
vCPU
Memory (GiB)
GPU
System disk (GiB)
Data disk (GiB)
Basic Office - A
1
2
None
80, 150
20, 70, 100, 150
Basic Office - B
2
4
None
80, 150
20, 70, 100, 150
Advanced Office - A
2
8
None
80, 150
20, 70, 100, 150
Advanced Office - B
4
16
None
80, 150
20, 70, 100, 150
Performance
8
32
None
80, 150
20, 70, 100, 150
Graphics
4
23
T4 × 0.25
150
150
Advanced Graphics
10
46
T4 × 0.5
150
150
Microsoft goes large with fifth Azure region in China [3]READ MORE
Integration with Active Directory will be offered, with Alibaba’s Resource Access Management (RAM) directory also an option.
The service appears to be spreading: documentation from late February said it was offered in four Chinese cities. The Register has since seen the service promoted as available in Alibaba’s Australian data centres.
Alibaba is far from first to offer virtual desktops. Amazon’s Workspaces and Azure Virtual Desktops are already in-market and offer more client options and integration with Microsoft Office that Alibaba does not currently match. It’s also possible to consume VMware’s Horizon or Citrix’s Virtual Desktops in multiple clouds.
[4]
But the new offering does mean that Alibaba has again matched its cloudy rivals, so as it marches into markets beyond China buyers will have one more reason to put it on their shopping lists. ®
Get our [5]Tech Resources
[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YEn4T1qDzwg5MVOsY@nQpQAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YEn4T1qDzwg5MVOsY@nQpQAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/08/microsoft_china_fourth_azure_region/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YEn4T1qDzwg5MVOsY@nQpQAAAEw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
"Alibaba has again matched its cloudy rivals"
Well, yes, and no.
Microsoft's Windows Virtual Desktop is free, tied to your existing 365 license (that's what [1]it's website says). Of course, Microsoft then goes and contradicts itself on its [2]pricing page , but hey, nobody ever said Borkzilla's right hand knew what its left hand was doing.
This Alibaba Cloud offering is obviously a good idea. People have had to scramble in the past year to get their hands on anything with a screen, so local CPU power and RAM is likely not in the high range. Offering a remote PC which your wheezing lump of plastic and toxic metals can just look at while the remote does the job is not a bad idea.
I'd like a realistic pricing on Borkzilla's offering though, for comparison.
[1] https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/virtual-desktop/
[2] https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/pricing/calculator/