VDI Workstation

The service includes

• Rent of one or more virtual clients based on a number of predefined standard configurations of CPU, RAM and GPU.
• The virtual clients are installed with ITA's standard platform (Karyon) for Windows 10.
• A resource pool in which one or more clients are placed.
• A resource pool can only contain one type of standard configuration regarding CPU, RAM and GPU. If more configurations are needed, other resource pools can be created.
• Two security levels (zones) for resource pools;

Security level: standard access

The clients access KI's services and have access to the internet. You can access all of KI's file servers and the local disk on the computer you connected to your virtual client from. Broadly speaking, a VDI is equivalent to a physical Windows 10 client.

Security level: security locked

A locked-down environment where clients cannot access KI's services, file servers or the internet. You also cannot access the storage on the physical client you connected from. The virtual clients in the security-locked zone can only use a dedicated storage area (W:) intended only for those virtual clients.

• Movement of data in and out of W: takes place via a dedicated MFT solution by predefined, authorized users. Ordering dedicated storage is done separately.
• Access to virtual clients occurs via a web interface or application.
• The virtual clients are configured with so-called "failover". A form of redundancy exists between our different data centres, which means that the client is started up in a secondary data centre if problems arise in the virtual client's data centre. Services running on the clients can be interrupted if this happens.

Important to know about the service

• Access to the service requires a written agreement with ITA.
• The customer complies with KI's and ITA's policies, rules and guidelines.
• The IT Office manages the installation of applications.
• Data and settings placed locally on the virtual client are currently lost on logout. Typically, you don't log out of your virtual client; you disconnect the connection. This is most easily compared to putting your physical computer to sleep when you close the screen. When you open the screen, you do not need to log in again but continue where you left off.
• Data residing on the virtual client is not backed up by any separate service.
• Data placed in the dedicated MFT service for resource pools in "Restricted" is automatically deleted after approximately seven days.

Support

• Error reporting and support issues are reported to the Helpdesk at ITA. The opening hours for the support are weekdays from 08:00 to 16:30
• The service may be affected by ITA's service window.
• See ITA's routines for service and maintenance and operating information on the Staff portal.

Environment and safety

The virtual clients are located in our data centres, which include:

• Physical protection, cooling and uninterruptible power with UPS and diesel.
• Energy efficiency compared to physical servers and clients in other environments such as offices or labs.
• The standard version of the service is inside KI's firewall. The Restricted zone is, in addition to this, on a separate network (VLAN).
• From an environmental and sustainability perspective, it is advantageous to use virtual clients as capacity can easily be scaled up and down as needed. As you subscribe to the service monthly, you only need to pay for it when you use it, unlike purchasing expensive computing hardware with a long amortization period.

Orders, pricing and delivery

VDI is ordered by submitting a filled order form to Helpdesk, through creating a ticket at KI IT Selfservice. The delivery time for the service is approximately five working days.

Pricing for file share (W:) and billing are the same as for other file storage in central systems and are not included in the pricing for the service. See more at Servers and storage.