Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is a service that hosts user desktop environments on remote servers. This application is very sensitive to network latency and requires a high performance compute environment. Traditionally these types of environments have not been put on cloud environments because few clouds are built to support such a demanding workload that is so exposed to end users. Recently, as cloud environments become more robust, vendors are starting to provide services that allow virtual desktops to be hosted in the cloud. In the not too distant future, OpenStack could be used as the underlying infrastructure to run a virtual infrastructure environment, either in-house or in the cloud.

Designing an infrastructure that is suitable to host virtual desktops is a very different task to that of most virtual workloads. The infrastructure will need to be designed, for example: Boot storms: What happens when hundreds or thousands of users log in during shift changes, affects the storage design. The performance of the applications running in these virtual desktops Operating system and compatibility with the OpenStack hypervisor

The connection broker is a central component of the architecture that determines which remote desktop host will be assigned or connected to the user. The broker is often a full-blown management product allowing for the automated deployment and provisioning of remote desktop hosts.

There are a number of commercial products available today that provide such a broker solution but nothing that is native in the OpenStack project. Not providing a broker is also an option, but managing this manually would not suffice as a large scale, enterprise solution.