Desktop Virtualization

HP Virtual Desktop Overview:

Application virtualization has been around for 20 years or so, and Citrix might be considered by many as the pioneer and go-to vendor for such technology. Since 1997, Microsoft has owned the hosted application infrastructure market via Terminal Services, or Remote Desktop Services. More recent technologies from Microsoft, Citrix and VMware bring new methods of application virtualization to the market via application streaming and isolation technologies.

These vendors use similar “sandbox” methods to present applications to end-user devices as a single, isolated package that does not typically install within the file systems and registries of the target devices. Isolation minimizes application conflicts and creates a single-instance installation of an application that can be used in a virtual desktop, traditional desktop or from a Remote Desktop service experience.

Desktop Virtualization addresses one of the most time-consuming and expensive operations supported by IT organizations — deploying and managing end-user desktops. According to industry estimates, managing a single desktop can cost more than $5,000 a year.

Unfortunately, even this high level of investment cannot keep pace with the rapid increase in application conflicts and corruptions that degrade user performance, reduce employee productivity, and increase the risk of data loss and security exposure.

FusionStorm can help!

Key benefits or components of a complete desktop virtualization solution

• Virtualized and centralized desktop management. This is a PC replacement strategy that has many benefits, but also can be an expensive move that will not show immediate ROI because of the back-end hardware and storage required to prepare such an infrastructure. Longer-term ROI is realized through more efficient managing and scaling of application and desktop resources, providing agility and flexibility for mergers, acquisitions and other day-to-day adds, moves and changes.
• Single-instance OS management. Hosted virtual desktops, or VDI is the foundation for a full desktop virtualization solution, but not a complete solution. The ability to create a single OS image and leverage this image for hundreds or even thousands of virtual desktops is a key to a great VDI solution. Both Citrix and VMware have methods for “provisioning” or “cloning” a single OS image to minimize the amount of storage required to support large numbers of virtual desktops. SAN or NAS storage optimization is a key to a well-crafted solution. For smaller environments where SAN is not an option, companies such as Kaviza shine in their ability to provide provisioning technologies that leverage DAS storage to assist these usage scenarios.
• Profile and personality management. One of the least considered but most important components of a well designed desktop virtualization solution is how user personality or profile requirements are managed. Sometimes users need access to applications and data that can only be served up from a particular OS, like Windows XP, due to software compatibilities. They may also use a Windows 7 virtual desktop for their primary computing platform. Top that off with the need to run Windows 2000/2003/2008 Terminal Services applications from partners or internal server farms, and managing the user environment becomes highly complex. Citrix has Profile Management to aid in this area, and soon VMware will release its profile management toolset, but the best-of-breed solution from our experience comes from AppSense in the form of its User Environment Management product.