Supporting a Virtual World

DaaS

In my last post I discussed taking a look at some of the Hosted VDI Solutions available to you in the marketplace. A hosted Virtual Desktop is known as DaaS or Desktop as a Service.

It’s all about the user experience with desktop access anywhere, anytime, and on any device.

The Virtual Desktop is hosted on a data center server virtual machine and delivered across the network using a remote display protocol. ( RDP, ICA, VNC,EOP, ALP and PCoIP.  I’ll save that for another blog).

Lets start with ThinkGrid [1]. ThinkGrid was named in a Gartner  report “ Cool Vendors in Infrastructure Services” So I wanted to take a look at their offerings. http://www.thinkgrid.ie/hosted-desktop.aspx

We will start with the desktop specifications. They offer Windows XP, but will soon offer Win 7. Some applications come standard, like Microsoft Office 2010 and Adobe Acrobat Reader 9. You can add and install your own applications using your own licensing. Or, take advantage of using their catalogue of applications for a monthly fee. Let’s say you have some temporary workers and really only need some applications for a few months. This is the ideal situation; you pay the monthly fee instead of the full licensing cost. When you are done you no longer pay the fee. It even supports local printing. You can have multiple images just like you normally would have for your different departments. I think when you take a look at the specifications you will find these are probably more powerful devices than what you are currently using in your environment.

Specifications

Fully Isolated Customer Environment - Full Customizable - Fully Virtualized _{(Not like Terminal Services)}

CPU/Processing Power -  Intel 2.2 Ghz Quad Core

Application Memory 1 GB - 32 GB

Disk Space 5 GB Useable Data + OS

Shared Diskspace (File Server) Optional

Resources Upgradeable and On-Demand Performance Burst

With the Group Management Pack and you get 100 GB Shared Fileserver, Active Directory/GP Management, User Permissions Management.

You can connect 24x7 with Windows, Mac, Linux or the iPad and Multi Monitor support is available.

Migrating your users

Not all your users would be a candidate for a hosted desktop. With this type of service, you choose who in your organization should use the hosted desktop and who stays on their regular desktop. This is where planning and testing comes into play. You can use a phased approach moving small or large sections at a time.

Wondering how much you can save by using DaaS?  You can download their Excel calculator.  http://www.thinkgrid.ie/hosted-desktop-info.aspx

There are also some really good whitepapers so you can compare DaaS to Google Apps or Go to My PC.

Go to their website and take a test drive, it’s free!

Desktop Virtualization is separating the Desktop environment from the Physical machine using a client–server model. The results are a  "virtualized" desktop on a remote server.

This allows users to access their desktops on any capable device, such as the traditional personal computer or  notebook computer, netbook, smartphone, iPad or thin client. Virtual desktop infrastructure, sometimes referred to as virtual desktop interface (VDI) is the server computing model enabling desktop virtualization. Basic Lesson in VDI 101.

On another note, did you know that you can also get hosted virtual desktops from desktop virtualization services provided through an outsourced  hosted subscription model.  Just Google “hosted vdi service” and you will get lots of results you can check out.

The outsourced model will normally include a managed desktop client operating-system configuration. Security could be physical  through a local storage-area network or virtual through data-center policies. Transferring your infrastructure to an outsourced model can shift accounting for the associated costs. ( Disclaimer: check with your own Accounting Experts) LOL, sorry, had to put that in there!

Now according to Gartner, hosted services accounted for more than 500,000 desktop units as of March 2009, but will grow to 49 million desktop units by 2013, and may make up as much as 40% of the worldwide "professional PC market" by revenue.^{1}

Below I have listed the pros and cons to VDI.  Network connectivity is a big issue with VDI. Make sure your infrastructure is well tested before deploying VDI’s. But when you really think about it, network connectivity is a big issue anyway in today’s mobile environment whether you have deployed VDI or not.

PROS: Good End User experience, Scalability, Performance, Cost Savings, Efficiency,  Images easy to update and maintain, Longer refresh cycles for your hardware.

CONS: Learning Curve, End User training, IT Staff Training, Maintaining drivers for printers and other peripherals, Reliance on connectivity to corporate or public network.

The most important thing you want to think about is Security. This could be a Pro or a Con, depending on how well you did your research, implementation and whether not you are maintaining the security of your virtual machines with an ongoing plan for updates to all of them.

Many of your OEM's have introduced VDI Packages. We can explore some of those on my next post.

Have you implemented VDI in your environment? Leave me a comment and share some of your experiences with us.

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References:

1.       http://www.cio.com/article/487109/Hosted_Virtual_Desktop_Market_to_Cross_65_Billion_in_2013/.

Since it’s going on as we speak, I have to talk about VMWorld 2010 Europe at the Bella Center in Copenhagen !  After all, it is the Virtualization event of the year. So if you are reading this, probably means, like me,  you did not get to go to VMWorld 2010. I had hoped to be blogging from the conference site, but fret not, we have plenty of Social media blogs, tweets and yes, even Facebook pages all dedicated to VMWorld 2010 Europe. 

Are we ready to Virtualize our Data center ?

Since this is my first Blog on Virtualization, let’s just start at the beginning. By now, we have all heard of Virtualization. If you have not heard about it, you’re probably not part of the world of IT. Maybe you have heard of, but just have not had the time to do the research. There is Desktop Virtualization, Application Virtualization, Storage Virtualization, Server Virtualization, Network Virtualization….. Need I say more?