>A client wants access to QuickBooks Desktop by multiple simultaneous users (~5 to start) at multiple sites. The app and its data files must be local to each other e.g. you can't have the app running on your local PC while the data files are stored somewhere in the cloud.
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>As I see it there are 2 ways to accomplish this. Both require setting up a Windows Server computer with appropriate licensing and configuration for Remote Desktop Services (RDS). QuickBooks Desktop can be installed on this computer, along with its data files. Multiple simultaneous users can each get a session on this server and run QuickBooks.
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>Option 1 is to set up a physical server computer at one of the sites, and configure remote access to it via VPN/Remote Desktop or Remote Desktop Gateway. I'm thinking an entry-level server with a basic Xeon, 16GB RAM and a couple of redundant mechanical hard drives would work fine.
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>Option 2 would be to set up a server VM instance (i.e. virtual server) on something like Azure.
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>The physical/on-premises option gives known, reliable performance. My limited understanding is that to get similar, reliable performance with a VM may require a fairly expensive tier. If the server may be running for several years then it may end up more expensive than on-premises.
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>Both options will require some sort of backup solution.
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>Can anyone offer any real-world experiences in provisioning and using virtual servers for this sort of remote desktop experience?
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>Notes:
>- The client does not want to migrate from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online
>- I understand other remote access options such as TSPlus may work in this scenario but this is a time-sensitive project and I'm not willing to learn, test and validate new (to me) technologies for it

For me it's always boiled down to support & how long before you will need more hardware. The larger companies I've worked at there were plenty of server and network guys... so did it in house. Smaller company where there are just a handful of us (or a small client with no full time I.T. staff) -- then yeah going to the cloud as don't have to support it. Guess that wasn't much help as basically all I said was "it depends" lol.