Questions before build
Posted: 5. Mar 2021, 11:36
Hello! I'm very new to this, so I'd like to humbly ask for your patience.
One of my business projects involves employees working from home, on their own computers, using software we provide. This scenario works well when it works, but we've started running into very inconsistent performance because the hardware varies so much and troubleshooting remotely is hard and time-consuming. Hence, the idea of providing a more consistent and sufficiently powerful environment for the employees: on-site desktop PCs with remote access. The obvious weakness is the user's internet connection peformance, but we're willing to risk it for this test.
Since the desktop environments are going to be pretty much identical for all users, and to save on the hardware complexity, I'd like to give VMs a try. I've been reading up a bit and VirtualBox comes up frequently as a possible solution.
The workload is mostly browser-based and involves working in multiple tabs, sometimes on rather heavy websites.
So. Questions.
1. Do I understand correctly that I can install VirtualBox on a Win10 desktop PC and then run, say, three Win10 VMs on it? Does it need to be a specific version of Win10?
2. Do I need separate Win10 licenses for all 3 VMs?
3. Assuming we need 4 cores and 8 GB RAM per user, can I assume that a PC with a 16c/32t CPU (like a Ryzen 3950X) and 64 GB RAM will be sufficient? How much resources should I leave for the host? What is the performance overhead I should account for?
4. Should I be concerned with SSD performance (3 concurrent users working), or will any decent SSD suffice?
5. Is it possible for the users to connect into VMs using AnyDesk (or similar software)? Are there limitations to this scenario when it comes to networking, specific software etc.?
One of my business projects involves employees working from home, on their own computers, using software we provide. This scenario works well when it works, but we've started running into very inconsistent performance because the hardware varies so much and troubleshooting remotely is hard and time-consuming. Hence, the idea of providing a more consistent and sufficiently powerful environment for the employees: on-site desktop PCs with remote access. The obvious weakness is the user's internet connection peformance, but we're willing to risk it for this test.
Since the desktop environments are going to be pretty much identical for all users, and to save on the hardware complexity, I'd like to give VMs a try. I've been reading up a bit and VirtualBox comes up frequently as a possible solution.
The workload is mostly browser-based and involves working in multiple tabs, sometimes on rather heavy websites.
So. Questions.
1. Do I understand correctly that I can install VirtualBox on a Win10 desktop PC and then run, say, three Win10 VMs on it? Does it need to be a specific version of Win10?
2. Do I need separate Win10 licenses for all 3 VMs?
3. Assuming we need 4 cores and 8 GB RAM per user, can I assume that a PC with a 16c/32t CPU (like a Ryzen 3950X) and 64 GB RAM will be sufficient? How much resources should I leave for the host? What is the performance overhead I should account for?
4. Should I be concerned with SSD performance (3 concurrent users working), or will any decent SSD suffice?
5. Is it possible for the users to connect into VMs using AnyDesk (or similar software)? Are there limitations to this scenario when it comes to networking, specific software etc.?