[vanity question] Cloud Computing / Virtual Desktop Questions

I was looking around to check into what's currently available for cloud storage (it's gotten so cheap these days) and happened upon AWS -- notice that they now offer a free tier of elastic cloud computing support. It doesn't look like anything too "super" but, hey, it looks "free" (at least for the first 12 months).

Anyway, this caused me to wonder about the viability of cloud-based virtual desktop computing for individuals and I was wondering if there were any people with experience who might be able to answer some questions.

BTW, for those who would scream about security in the public cloud, I am not talking about putting anything sensitive out there.

First of all, my desktop is a quad core AMD running on a 32 bit MB and I'm currently running Ultimate Edition 3.4 (which is based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS) Yes, I'm probably going to upgrade the OS to something more modern when I get around to it -- looking at Linux Mint right now, since that's the current flavor of the week. Although I would be playing with any virtual desktop on this machine, the primary reason for my interest is to maybe extend the use of a couple of older Sony Vaio laptops that I have floating around that have gotten a bit long in the tooth and aren't really much use these days (except perhaps as a thin client).

2) if possible, to run as a client at my ham radio station. There, it is also mostly general purpose computing, but there are some software applications that I use for 1) controlling my radio (running on a USB / RS-232 interface) and 2) digital communications (running an external sound card through a different USB interface)

- Does anybody know if there are virtual desktop interface providers out there who are targeting the individual / SOHO market? (Free is REALLY good, cheap is acceptable)

- With using one of these virtual machines, do you always use the provider's OS, or do you get what is virtually bare metal and install the OS yourself?

- How is the performance of a virtual desktop with streaming audio / streaming video? If you try to do so with a older, lower powered thin client, does that even matter?

- On a related note (for the radio questions), how does the virtual interface work with client-side hardware. You note that I mentioned an USB / RS-232 radio interface and an external USB sound card interface that I need for radio purposes. Delay, jitter, etc., would make such a thing unusable.

- Finally, what do I need to watch out for that could end up biting me really badly in the wallet? I noted with, for example, AWS...if you went over their limits, they automatically shift you to their a la carte pricing for processors, network traffic, and storage. Of course, with AWS, after the first year of free, they start charging you (sort of reminds me a "3 free months of Showtime and cancel anytime after that" type of deal that cable companies do)

Good morning, I have a little bit of experience with AWS and VDI. I did some work for a company last year that had VDI provisioning automated. They would assign me a job, which included checking out specific code modules from SVN and then automatically provisioning a virtual desktop. You could choose if you needed this to run on Windows or Linux -- depending on what the code was. For example, if the code was a c# desktop application then I would auto-provision a Windows host in the amazon cloud. If the code was anything else (e.g. Ruby, Java, etc) then I would provision a Linux host.

This scheme worked really well the entire time that I was engaged on their projects. For your situation, you might not be able to provision a VDI because you have specific hardware requirements (RS232 interface). The virtualized storage might just fit your needs and seems cheap enough.

The Windows Azure cloud is another option(albeit more expensive). You can provision Windows or Linux images and allocate them by time slice or permanently, etc. I have about 5 projects running in Windows Azure and it seems very reliable.

I've run a windows/IIS/ms sql server web site of AWS free tier. The site ran fine with a few concurrent users but maxed out pretty quick so I wouldn't want more than a few users. Remote desktop (MS standard client) worked ok but was definitely slow and I wouldn't want to use it all day. With even the small instance (not free micro) RD is as smooth as my home system. I've shared audio, drives, and USB through RD with no problems.
I work with someone who runs a centos/apache/mysql site on the free tier. I've helped him admin the site but with ssh/command line so I don't know about virtual desktop on the micro. X works well with the small instance with xming server on windows and a standard centos running X. I haven't shared any audio, drives, or usb.
For my main job I use general purpose and compute optimized instances. The real power of vms like aws is that I can spin up as many instances as I want for dev and set production to spin up as many as it needs for the current users.
- Does anybody know if there are virtual desktop interface providers out there who are targeting the individual / SOHO market? (Free is REALLY good, cheap is acceptable) Not sure what you're looking for. Any standard X server will work - there are free ones for windows or you have it if you run Ubuntu. You can probably get your USB devices working but I don't know anything about them.
- With using one of these virtual machines, do you always use the provider's OS, or do you get what is virtually bare metal and install the OS yourself? With AWS you pick an AMI with the OS/environment you want. You can choose dozens of versions of Linux (SuSE, Centos, red hat, ubuntu), with/without web or db servers, and lots of other software. Or choose a base OS then install all the other services/apps you want.
- How is the performance of a virtual desktop with streaming audio / streaming video? If you try to do so with a older, lower powered thin client, does that even matter? Audio is fine with the micro instance. I wouldn't try video on micro. My job is in video - I can play video on my local machine from an NFS share on the AWS instance. I can also watch video on a X window on my local machine that's playing on the AWS instance. But that's with a good local machine and medium or larger AWS instance. Probably wouldn't work well on the free micros.
- On a related note (for the radio questions), how does the virtual interface work with client-side hardware. You note that I mentioned an USB / RS-232 radio interface and an external USB sound card interface that I need for radio purposes. Delay, jitter, etc., would make such a thing unusable. Almost certain to get delay/jitter with the micro instance.
- Finally, what do I need to watch out for that could end up biting me really badly in the wallet? I noted with, for example, AWS...if you went over their limits, they automatically shift you to their a la carte pricing for processors, network traffic, and storage. Of course, with AWS, after the first year of free, they start charging you (sort of reminds me a "3 free months of Showtime and cancel anytime after that" type of deal that cable companies do) Free tier is only for a year. It gets more expensive than running a local machine when it's not free. AWS is great when you need a variable number of machines and can pay for 10 machines an hour when you have high traffic but only 1 machine in off hours. It's also good in that you don't have to replace hardware yourself when something dies - just spin up a new instance. And it's great for development - I can use 1 or a dozen test machines at any time - I can have $100,000 of hardware for a few hours for $10/hour and I really don't know the difference between the machine in the room and those at AWS (UI feels the same with command line or X).
After all that, I'd say AWS is not what you want. Free tier won't handle your audio and other instances are more expensive.

One last thing.. you mentioned trying out Mint.. wait until around June/July; The next Mint LTS should be released around then.. (Mint is now 16... the last LTS was 13). The Mint LTS is 5 years, if I remember correctly.. but I always looked forward to testing the updates in-between, so I am using 16. Gave me a good excuse to do a fresh install each time ;^)

The only setback I ever had with Mint, was if you are using a Broadcom Wireless (I just went from wireless to Ethernet (direct/wired)) to my router; I personally prefer direct (wired) for the security and since I no longer have kids running around that may trip over the wires, haven't had a problem WITH the wires (all of them >.<)

There are workarounds, but you may either have to ask on here, or research (there are workarounds). Other than that, all needed Linux drivers were installed before even the first reboot.... and I can't remember ANY updates in the last couple of years that required a reboot :)

(Also, one of the easiest Linux installs I have ever used.)

This pic is not necessarily for you... it is for the peeps that question Linux ;^)
These are my 2 screens up at the same time.. OS is Linux and other screen is obviously Windows7 ;^) The screen-cap did not capture the Windows taskbar at the bottom (was replaced by the KDE one.. but it is there).

Apologies Mark for throwing this in here..

You cannot count the number of times over the years I've kicked myself for building a 32-bit system. In theory, running a Virtualbox instance would be ideal for a lot of the stuff I want to do, but, sadly, I seem to max out on resources far too much.

I feel for you. I built a new desktop a couple of years ago. It's a eight core I7 (actually 4 core with 2 threads each) with 18G of ram and plenty of disk space. When I built it out, my goal was to have a system that was a 10 year box. The last desktop lasted for about that long before I finally just couldn't take how slow it was relative to new hardware. I don't build on the bleeding edge of the performance curve, but just a little behind it. It cost a lot more than a generic no-name system that is 'good enough' for day to day stuff, but then, I'm looking at the cost as being spread out over 10 years, so it's not nearly so bad.

I have found a very few things that will actually max my box out, but those are very much few and far between. The horsepower available today is astounding. Way back in the day, I used to play with fractals using Fractint. Things that would take literally days to render are now only a matter of a few seconds. Sometimes it is hard to believe how far and fast we've come.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.