Funny thing, I need to use an amazon workspace from time to time for my job. I've managed to keep 100% Linux (for my personal boxes) professionally and at home for a good long time now, but a specific (and thankfully rare) access requirement was solved by using a Windows Amazon workspace.

Guess what? No Linux workspaces client.

So now to gain network access to a particular resource (a web address), I run the Windows workspaces client under Wine under Linux, which gives me access to a properly virtualized Windows workspace, which gives me access to a web address that is hosted on Linux.

It would be a comic tragedy except that it was so damn easy to make it work, and it works very well.

In science, it's common to run one week schools on various topics for graduate students and young postdocs. When software is involved, we spend a lot of time dealing with the students' installation issues. I tried the VM approach once, but the images are relatively large and when I tried it with VMWare, the registration process was still a bit cumbersome. This time I tried Amazon workspaces for about 30 students. Though I had some initial growing pains (be careful on permissions!) and they did (I think they were just scaling up when we ran it), I would use it again. It simplifies the Mac/PC issues that we had and makes it easy to share materials. We did have one student with a linux box and it's a shame that Amazon didn't (doesn't?) have a windows client, but overall I had a positive experience. I saw that someone mentioned that there is an Azure option that's similar? At the time, I saw that VMware also had an offering. Has anyone tried it?

*disclaimer these are my personal opinions, not my employer's

Worked on Workspaces at AWS for about a year, on the software clients in particular. I think their product has potential but for the moment is limited by some underlying technology decisions made in the interest of a quicker go-to-market.

I would not be surprised if at some point soon their underlying tech became all first-party and we saw some significant improvement. There are plenty of resources throughout AWS that with some work could be composed into a better stack than the 3P pieces and protocols they use currently.

I don't think I've disclosed anything here that isn't already public knowledge, past my own wild speculation based on zero knowledge of internal workings since my departure. If anyone has any questions that I can answer without endangering myself to NDA issues, I'd be glad to answer about Workspaces.

I think it's a great product for those who benefit from it; I ended up leaving the team because while the technological challenges were interesting, I couldn't put myself in any potential users' shoes, and therefore really couldn't drum up much organic passion of my own.

I love that this idea never goes away (in my first real career job, I supported actual dumb terminals that we replaced with desktops). It never seems to take off either, but it's always just about to. I don't mean to criticize! WorkSpaces sounds pretty great.

OK, so Workspaces appeals to me (C# developer for a small company, no IT team, working from home) as redundancy - at present, if my laptop goes bang everything is backed up in "the cloud" (be that Azure, S3, somewhere) but it's the time getting everything restored like the multiple Visual Studio versions I need, the connectors for SSRS report designer etc. that I can see Workspaces working out for me (laptop goes bang, borrow my wifes one, connect to Workspace, carry on as if nothing happened until I can get a replacement)

However ... Workspaces looks like it needs an Enterprise AWS subscription ($15k/month?) so what alternatives are there for someone like me, where someone takes care of providing a Virtual Desktop, making sure it's running, backed up, connectable from anywhere (obviously with me responsible for ensuring off-site backup of any code/deliverables as I am at the moment) or is it best just to run up my own VPS with Win2k12 or similar and use that?

EDIT Ignore that, I was getting a weird redirect where trying to subscribe to WorkSpaces was taking me to the Support Subscription page, and just would not let me subscribe to WorkSpaces, but it appears to have sorted itself out now

- Q: What Operating System does a WorkSpace run?

- WorkSpaces provide users with the Windows 7 Experience, provided by Windows Server 2008 R2.

Suits only a windows user - lets say you need a ubuntu machine; the EC2 m3.large similar to the "Performance" workspace bundle. The difference between AWS Workspace and AWS EC2 is huge ($48), while AWS Workspace will cost you $60, EC2 Machine with same configuration will cost you $108.

But the advantage with the EC2 machine - is you should be able to shutdown the machine when not in use, so a 50 Hour/Week will cost you only $39, that is $21 less than the AWS Workspace. So any AWS workspace single user who can use Linux Machine does not benefit from AWS Workspace.

History truly does repeat itself. Shall we go over the shortcomings and problems with thin clients again?

Network problems mean you are screwed. Even short of full on connectivity loss, if you're suffering congestion or packet loss for whatever reason, a thin client can quickly become unusable. Right now I work remotely a lot, from accessing remote git repositories to doing work on c9.io (which I love.) But if I do suffer network problems, I can work locally. It's not a full on loss of productivity.

Yes network ubiquity, reliability and speed has never been better than it is today. But it is not 100%. Especially if you live in a rural area like I do.

Datacenter problems mean you're screwed. Datacenter suffer outages too. Even AWS. Again, with a traditional client you can cope with it. With a thin client you are totally hosed.

As with network issues, there are lots of datacenter problems that aren't full on outages. Hardware and otherwise.

Even Thin Clients suffer obsolescence. One of the tried and true dreams of thin clients is that they don't go obsolete. Anyone who has been on this rodeo before knows that's just not true. Network connectivity gets better, display connectivity gets better, power usage improves, etc. And with today's desktop and laptop speeds improving at the snail pace they do, a thin client really isn't offering any bonus here. If you buy a good laptop or desktop today it's going to last you years and years. (The MacBook I'm typing on now is 4 years old and showing no signs of age.)

It is slower. Despite this raving endorsement (totally unbiased I'm sure.) Thin clients that have to reach out across the network for every action are always going to be slower than a machine that doesn't. The network is always adding latency. Whether that bothers you or not largely depends on your own tolerances and what you are doing.

There's a reason thin clients always make a comeback and people are excited for a while and then realize "Oh wait I want a traditional machine again please." This cycle has happened so many times.

I have to agree with this. It has been a real pleasure to use. I have managed about 50 workspaces... but there has been some annoying things:

  - inability to modify workspace t-shirt size
  - workspace features using AWS services but mostly hidden
  - lack of ability to re-brand the client (i did rewrap the installer with custom artwork but breaks on upgrades).
  - Linux client... still waiting. (but can run under wine)
  - not easy to use 2fa support
  - not easy to set default printer.. they are non-static
  - reboots are slow
  - no ability to declare exit IP location... UK people don't want to appear in Ireland (bad for google.com and credit card payments).. have to spin up a standalone proxy using a different provider (thanks digital ocean).
  - BYOL is great.. but inbuilt support for office365 would be better.
  - No Amazon Elastic File System yet in Ireland.. so have to run a separate fileserver for network drive.
  - Not been able to get vnc as a service working.. and can't use the windows UAC without it.
  - No ability to use custom templates on user provisioning emails.
  - Can't use human interaction device, such as dictate pedals for secretaries. 
  - .. and some more.. these are the top of my head.

  inability to modify workspace t-shirt size

As long as your use cases are covered sufficiently and you're fine with cloud'ing your environment completely, I guess this can work.

But I much prefer being self-reliant and not at the whim of a company for things like my computing environment. This is why I run free/open source Unix variants and Linux and rely on applications whose config I can copy and reuse across machines. Add NixOS on top and you have yourself a one command setup on a new machine, if you desire so. If I don't own the environment myself and understand it, I cannot fix problems when they come up and they will, unfortunately.

I checked out Amazon Workspace a few months to see if I could get rid of one of my laptops. Alas, my client's VPN caused issues. I opted for creating a vm and accessing it through the web via Guacamole. I can get to my machine from anywhere. http://guacamole.incubator.apache.org/

If you are interested in VDI without the complexity that comes with AWS check us out at https://www.paperspace.com (YCW15)

a few key differences:

- we can stream directly to a web browser without any plugins

- you can fire up a new machine in just a few minutes

- all of our machines have GPUs that make the experience feel great (we work with architects, engineers, and others that need a fluid desktop experience)

- we are cheaper (starting at $15/month) and our pricing is predictable

[disclaimer: I'm one of the founders]

> One morning I sent the team an email with the provocative title “My WorkSpace has Disappeared!” They read it in a panic, only to realize that I had punked them, and that I was simply letting them know that I was able to focus on my work, and not on my WorkSpace.

"Jokes on them I was only pretending!"

Do people actually do this in a corporate setting?

I'll assume that this is just fluff for the sake of being able to post an advertisement under the guise of a blog post.

Paperspace.io is pretty awesome. I've been using it for about a week now. The specs/ratio are much better over there.

As a software engineer that works across multiple platforms, I've used Amazon Workspaces as my primary Windows dev environment for the past 18 months. In general the experience is great- the input response and 2D graphics are superior to an RDP session. It's easy to forget you're working remotely. Another nice bonus is longer battery life relative to running a virtual machine on your laptop.

But the real limitation is the tiny C: partition. It's fixed at 60 GB, nearly half of which consumed by Windows and its gradual updates, which generally leaves you with insufficient space to install Visual Studio with the Xamarin tools.

The limitation has been noted in the AWS Developer forums, but unfortunately the 60 GB limitation seems hard-wired into the platform for now[1]. It's painful enough that I searched around for alternatives, but I couldn't find any direct competitors! I'd be 100% happy with this if I didn't have to run up against this 60 GB limit all the time. Just a heads-up for any engineers considering this for a Windows development environment.

[1] https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=220618

Had to use workspaces on a client project a few months ago. There was some bizarre issue between El Capitan and the remote desktop which would send most of my keystrokes to the remote instance, even when the focus was not on the Workspace window.

I'd somewhat narrowed the behaviour to any 'messaging' system - slack, skype, messages and some others - if I switched to slack or responded to an osx 'messages' notice, my keystrokes would also be sent to the Workspace, and generally cause havoc. I'd leave an IDE open, switch to slack to talk to the client, come back, and all the code was replaced with our conversation.

There seemed to be reports of some similar behaviour with a windows client last year, and it was supposed to be 'fixed', but I never saw any reports of similar OSX behaviour.

In a past job, I worked with a company who deployed thin clients at various locations around the country to rapidly expand their footprint with minimum upfront capital.

However, we constantly ran in to problems with this model of centralizing computing to a Terminal Server.

If the office doesn't have 100% stable and fast internet, your users will complain. Users are accustomed to lightening fast response from clicking/typing. Also, if the internet does go out, the entire office is offline and productivity halts until resolved.

We then investigated redundant internet links... But, there's a point where the monthly recurring cost no longer justifies this model.

As cool as this tech is, I don't think it will ever take off as the risk of lost productivity, and user frustration, is too high.

But I like having my stuff on my machine.

My organization does thin clients and I'm a big fan. It would be nice to have smaller quieter and more energy efficient ones, but I'm sure it was cheaper to keep what we have. I never have problems with software not being up to date or something going wrong. Just new problems like if there are network issues I can't do any work (was still a problem before moving to thin clients). I also like that I can just use my computer at home and log in and have everything set up like I'm at work.

Quite a convincing description! I can really dig the overview and description of transition and use case scenarios. Kind of makes me chuckle to see a Dummy Terminal return, I mean, cough, Zero Client. The more things change, right?

As a quite satisfied user of Amazon's StoryWriter program online I can really agree the ease of access and stability of the resource provides value. I've moved from CelTx at this point, and will probably even import to Amazon from that.

A friend is experimenting with Amazon's VideoDirect system as well, so I hope to hear about that experience. He did mention the need for Closed Captioning took some effort to find a suitable online tool (there are some good free ones) and the large file uploads for HD video isn't the most fun, but so far, so good.

For some reason, Amazon has targeted some of the creative sector in ways that Google and Facebook I don't think quite understand how to set up. Sure, both have some dominant platforms and tools (YouTube, "Artist Pages") but these new-ish developments by Amazon seem to be sticking the landing pretty often.

Gotta say though, I like seeing this admission:

>I do still run PowerPoint locally, since you can never know what kind of connectivity will be available at a conference or a corporate presentation.

Nice. Every little defense against Murphy's Law in presentation/performance is a wise move in my experience.

Who are these people who have good enough internet connections for one reasonable Remote Desktop session, let alone dozens?

Outside of college I've never been in a building with that kind of bandwidth. At a tech company office, sure, but they don't need to outsource this kind of thing. Your average small to medium business in my hometown has 3Mbps at best.

My bet is that if/when this kicks off a bit more the next move will be Amazon laptops (these being like Chromebooks).

I dunno, as a dev you can just docker your environment and if your Macbook air dies, you buy a new one, and simply pull your images and your back to work in minutes.

Even setting up a mac from scratch for me only takes an hour, and I run an array of different web-apps.

An hour lost at worst once a year isn't worth much to me.

I've been experimenting with something vaguely similar in the form of getting a ChromeBook and using a Nitrous VM for programming projects.

I initially used (and preferred) Koding, but their shift away from solo accounts made me switch. I find it very strange that they have such a good core product that they could simply focus their efforts there and instead so much of their effort seems aimed at building an integrated slack / hipchat / .. competitor. They could integrate with them and have much a better selling point.. I digress..

It's oddly unburdening to not have any projects on your laptop but at the same time have the ability to access them whenever from any machine. I firmly believe it's the future.

I was running an AWS spot instance for 3D rendering/modeling for a while, using one of their GPU instances. It's my only Windows based workload, and I only do it occasionally, there aren't powerful enough laptop GPU's - so it was a decent option. The remote connection wasn't a problem, but it was a pain spinning the spot instance up and down.

In the end I just built a PC with a GTX970 at home instead which I use with Splashtop remotely now. I also setup a Belkin Wemo switch if I need to reboot it remotely.

I've done something similar for years, all my files are mounted on my drive with sshfs. Whether I'm at home or work everything is available to me and when I'm done I log off my VPN and all my sensitive documents unmount and "disappear", what's left is just a few applications... Sublime, chrome etc... Works great.

I've seen variations work quite well.

The first time was in a startup company. We hired a brilliant and unconventional sys admin who was somewhat reminiscent of the Gilfoyle character in "Silicon Valley". After being hired, he took a few weeks to analyze how the user groups worked. Then he disappeared into his work room for a few weeks, often working late into the night. When he finally reappeared, he had set us up so that our desktops were running apps from the Windows servers. (At the time, we used Windows 3.51 on the server with Novell ?Netware?.) I ran everything from Powerbuilder to an Oracle standalone instance to Word (or Wordperfect) from the server. When I needed additional tools, he was very cool about installing them.

The second time was at a training session at Sun Microsystems' Burlington, MA campus. My first day they handed me a key card. The card allowed me access to the building and rooms I was authorized for. I also needed it for access to workstations. I could go up to any workstation in the lobby and authorized rooms, insert it into a card reader, and instantly have my desktop appear in the state I left it in during my last session. It was a fully graphical desktop. Absolutely eye-opening experience working there for a few days. It spoiled me. I've been looking for that experience again, but haven't found it.

In the end, it always boils down to network reliability, latency, and loss of power/control, which is where you pay for the convenience you get from thin terminals.

The control issue in particular will come back, it's human nature. Centralised environments are locked down to a level that someone eventually finds intolerable, so they start using unsupervised local hardware. It's the natural anarchy of the human spirit... or a reaction to the stupidity of people in power :)

It's been one of the pendulum swings in IT... actually the company I work for has dumb terminals for most of its employees, and the people in charge of support are very happy (users, not that much).

https://outrunchange.com/2011/11/05/the-computing-pendulum-h...

That was my first thought, too. It's the Network Computer again!

Same. (I love it too).

Although it is getting so close.

Dropbox and drive sort of get you to a half-way point solution.

Case in point: "The Network Is The Computer"...

I was trialing (the now defunct) Nivio back in 2007. It was so close!

Where are you seeing the Enterprise AWS subscription requirement? Looks like pricing is per-user and rather reasonable: https://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/pricing/

The $15k seems to be for enterprise-level support, which wouldn't be needed for trying out the service (you'd probably want a high level of support if downtime in the service literally prevents your entire office from doing work, of course).

Not sure where you saw that you need an Enterprise AWS subscription. I didn't.

I tried Workspaces for a month and it was decent. There are a few things it does better than RDP (especially on OS X). I did, however, switch to running Windows Server 2012 R2 on Azure instead, though that was because it was effectively free thanks to BizSpark.

Huh? You can run it separately and afaict, install whatever you want on it. A co-worker of mine ran workspaces for a while for $20-30 a month.

You could also just run everything on a VM locally and back up snapshots of the VM.

You could copy your disk to an external drive and boot from that, or you could copy the files from the external drive into the laptop's drive.

On Azure I believe your MSDN entitlements carry over so you could create a VM on Azure and keep it offline until you need it.

I'm interested in the concept of a VDI - and both https://paperspace.io/ and http://guacamole.incubator.apache.org/ look interesting.

However... I frequently work with very, very, very limited and intermittent bandwidth (i.e. off of my mobile phone via railline), so unless Paperless can work offline, your statement/bullet, "Untethered Agility" seem particularly deceptive!

Looks great! I've been managing my own remote VMs for secure development environments for freelance coders. It would be nice to lower the time I spend on administration.

Having access to a GPU is a great bonus too. Some of the coding we do involves deep learning and being able to provide GPU access to the developers rather than making them switch to a staging server to test things would be a big improvement.

I look forward to when you have capacity for new users!

I gotta say I am intrigued. I own a devshop and we're expanding globally with remote developers. Finding a good solution to standardize workflow has been a pain so far.

What would you say differs you from Amazon Workspaces? I see your graphics include W10 screens but the pricing says W7 only. Are you planning to offer Linux machines too? How do you deal with global latency (Amazon has data centers all over the place after all)?

Hey DTE, can you grant me access ? I would sign up immediately.... my oldish laptop is starting to betray me ... I'll be needing the $25 one

youkhilawala@gmail

No EU location? Would be keen if you could support that.

Just tried to sign up but sign ups dont appear to be available.