http://www.redhat.com/summit/sessions/index.html#394

Great discussion around Red Hat’s solutions for clustering, fencing, etc, in virtualized environments.

Fencing is /very/ important for shared resources, especially disk.  In a virtualized world (RHEV, VMWare, etc), fencing tools can reach right into the hypervisor to kill a failed node in a cluster.  Similarly, ILO, RSA, DRAC, etc can be used to kill power to physical servers.  Either way, before another node in a cluster takes over the shared resource, it is *critical* that the other node is killed.  But obviously — this is an easy way to shoot yourself in the foot.  As the presentors just said – “test, test, and test some more” to make sure you fencing parameters align with your deployment.

The Red Hat VDI solution has come a long way … client-side rendering and media off-load, built right on top of the RHEV stack (no separate infrastructure!), user portal is part of the package (no additional purchase!).

Comparisons between VMWare View and XenDesktop show roughly functionality/feature parity, but Red Hat VDI appears *much* less expensive, and can provide both Windows and Linux virtual desktops.

http://www.redhat.com/summit/sessions/index.html#5

And checkout the Red Hat TCO/ROI comparison tool:

https://roianalyst.alinean.com/ent_02/AutoLogin.do?d=482903301639024770

However – a critical feature is still missing.  While Red Hat VDI looks like a great replacement for desktops, there is no iPad client yet.  For many, this may be the killer.  It is on the near-future roadmap though!