HVE ConneXions (a Sphere 3D company based in Texas) offers HVE (hybrid virtual engine) virtual desktop infrastructure, an appliance supporting desktop virtualization. The product line includes a non-converged VDI appliance and converged VDI appliances.
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Unidesk (Discontinued)
Score 5.7 out of 10
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Unidesk was a virtual desktop technology from the Massachusetts company of the same name, and acquired by Citrix. It has reached End of Life (EOL).
HVE-VDI is well suited in just about any environment were desktops and servers need to be managed. Schools, Government institutions, Banks, Churches etc. If you are needing to run virtual desktops and just not sure on how to do so. HVE inc is for sure the company that you need.
Unidesk is well suited to environments where users are accustomed to using personalized and "unique" desktops where as other solutions cater only to standard or non-persistent desktop experiences. The personalization layer present in Unidesk allows users to feel as though they are using a personalized system without the complexities of managing dozens or hundreds of unique systems for users across your company. Updates to existing desktops/layers are accomplished with ease and can easily be done by lower tier support. If your deliverable is to provide a persistent desktop experience while maintaining the best density and performance of your infrastructure then Unidesk is a hard solution to beat.
Maybe price. They do a really good job in their pricing... But sometimes it is still little about the price range for some small schools.
Choosing vendors. In my area, they have partnered with a small tech company that does not have a great track record. To be able to choose who I can purchase from would be great. But, they have worked with me to help with this.
Maybe easier to get onsite support. Most of the time a remote connection is how support works. To get on site is a little tough. But again, HVE has always come through. I'm just having to be very picky.
Occasionally if a desktop is left on for too long some weird things happens. For example, the desktop is no longer recognized in AD - it could be AD, removal, etc., but I have checked all these. Refreshing and restoring the VM seems to solve the problem. This happened more than once.
We have redundancy (two) connection brokers - Unidesk has trouble from time to time knowing which one to use it seems.
The rebuild takes too long when the VM is larger. Users would reboot their desktop as a normal routine and they call to reboot thinking their VD is down when it was just taking its time to rebuild the layers (anywhere from 5 to 15 mins. Mostly 15mins).
AppVolumes seems to be a lot less mature as a product. It does have some benefits over Unidesk e.g. the fact it doesn't include the OS Layer (image management) side means I can just use it for the app layering piece if I like. I can also deploy my application layers to physical desktops BUT I have had less success compatibility wise with my applications as AppVolumes 'AppStacks'. I believe Unidesk has a better handle on the do's and don'ts, or at least may be a little more honest about them. I also don't enjoy the Console with AppVolumes and while I can use it without the image management or tied into the stack the way Unidesk is...you also lose that image management and need to couple it with another product in some scenarios. FlexApp to me is stronger than AppVolumes. FlexApp is coupled with a profile management solution called ProfileUnity which makes it a more attractive alternative (at least at the time of me posting this). However, I prefer other UEM products at this moment in time. I also value the image management and ease of a single console for all of Virt Desktop management that Unidesk provides.
They have made us one of the leading schools in our area for sure.
We were able to role out Texas Online State Testing with little to no problems. THIS IS HUGE!!
Less downtime... Their server solutions are one of the most stable in the business. I rarely ever have server issues. When you do, you can be back up and be going in Minutes.
