Desktop virtualisation has been proposed as a way to reduce IT costs, but it takes investment and planning – and IT managers should make sure they have a good enough infrastructure before they embark on the process, according to a webinar chaired by eWEEK.
In particular, desktop virtualisation can result in a big demand for storage, so organisations should only go in that direction if they have a well managed storage network, which can reduce any duplication and manage the costs of storage, presenters agreed in the webinar, Best Practices for Planning and Managing VDI.
Desktop virtualisation is in many ways a continuation of older models of computing using “thin clients” instead of PCs, which were popularised in the late 1990s, and themselves derived from older terminal access models.
The big benefit is reducing the total cost of ownership of desktops. This is partly based on using less hardware on the desktop, but is mostly to do with vastly reduced management cost, since the applications normally run on the desktop – and the operating system – are moved onto a central resource.
Some people argue that today’s virtual desktop propositions are just retreads of older thin client models, but two differences emerged in the webcast, both of which derive from the fact that virtual desktops are a combination of thin clients and a “cloud” approach .
Secondly, today’s virtual desktop solutions are being proposed at a time when users are becoming conditioned to use remote applications. They expect and prefer email to be in “cloud” servers like Google or Hotmail, and are able to see their virtual desktop as a logical continuation of that trend.
Although this sounds fine in principle, any CIO moving towards virtual desktops has to deal with the actual reality of what is installed, and what users want to do, said the webinar presenters.
For him, a major benefit of desktop virtualisation is allowing users to get to their applications through mobile devices. He recently deployed 150 Motorola Milestones (the European name for the Motorola Droid). “They are not being used as phones,” he said (the organisation has no voice bundle). Instead, they are used to access email and applications remotely. “Phoning is the last bit that people are interested in.”
Craig said: “It’s about breaking the link between the PC and the applications. “The PC becomes a display device – like a television – with different channels,” said Jim Craig, Oracle’s sustainable IT lead. “A Linux channel and channels for different flavours of Windows.”
Page: 1 2
Thoma Bravo agrees to acquire Darktrace for $5.32 billion in cash, delivering some welcome news…
Customer adoption of AI services embedded in cloud services continues to deliver results for Microsoft,…
TikTok's 'secret source' algorithm is so core to ByteDance, it would rather shut down US…
After relocating from California to Texas in 2020, Oracle's Larry Ellison now reveals plan to…
Share price hit after Meta admits heavy AI spending plans, after posting strong first quarter…
For third time Google delays phase-out of third-party Chrome cookies after pushback from industry and…