Ask yourself the following question: “Within my organization, what is the most important element that allows us to drive our mission forward?” Is it the elaborate network of technologies that runs the business applications or is it the team of IT professionals that ensures that the network is always available? Is it the most critical business application or is it the end users that use the application every day? Generally speaking, it’s the people – not the technology – who drive the organization’s mission forward. More specifically, it’s the users’ day-to-day access of the business applications to perform their necessary job functions that keeps the business going. So if people and their applications are the most important elements of your business, what is your organization doing to ensure that users have reliable and optimal access to the applications they need to do their job? If you’re like many organizations, there are opposing objectives between end users and IT where users demand and need flexibility with their computing environment, while IT’s objective is to further increase their control of the computing environment. Both sides have justified needs, but the end goal should be to find a good balance between user flexibility and IT control. Having the right balance means that users are most productive without IT compromising security and incurring increased cost of implementing and managing more complex systems for the business.

Desktop Virtualization Is Not Just VDI

Desktop virtualization has been recently popularized by a desktop technology commonly referred to as “VDI,” or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. VDI leverages server virtualization technology running in most data centers today to allow servers to host virtual machines with desktop operating systems such as Windows XP and Windows 7. End users can access these virtual desktops using thin clients, repurposed PCs, or existing PCs, even mobile devices such as laptops and smartphones. Several benefits are derived from VDI, such as centrally managed and secured desktops, increased energy-efficiency through the use of thin clients, and even an instant backup/recovery solution for the desktop environment. But contrary to what’s been popularized, which has led some people to believe that VDI is the end-all and be-all of desktop virtualization technologies, desktop virtualization goes beyond just VDI.

Think about the end users in your organization. Would you say that your end users can be classified into one user group, each performing the same function, generating the same workload, thus requiring the same technologies for each? There’s a good chance that your end users have varying workloads and demands, ranging from task workers who may only need access to one or two business applications (such as email and word processing), to power users that require more powerful machines for multi-tasking several applications or use of resource-intensive applications such as 3D-mapping and mechanical engineering software. Desktop virtualization technologies give your organization the ability to have varying optimized solutions for the different user types in your organization. As opposed to categorizing everyone in your organization as a VDI candidate, imagine having the flexibility of a desktop virtualization solution that can instantly provision the right desktop environment, workloads, and applications for users to be most productive, while requiring the least amount of effort for IT. It’s akin to having several tools in your toolbox and knowing the right tool to use at any given time. Desktop virtualization provides the balance that organizations seek between end-user flexibility and IT efficiency.

Classification of Desktop Virtualization Technologies

Desktop virtualization technologies can be classified into three categories: 1) server compute with centralized storage, 2) client compute with centralized storage, and 3) client compute with local storage.

For most organizations, a combination of two and even three of these client computing architectures exist. In server compute with centralized storage, the traditional server-based computing model (i.e., Terminal Services, Citrix XenApp) provides end users with reliable access to business applications. It also provides the greatest density in terms of users per server of any desktop virtualization technology in the market today. At the other end of the spectrum, client compute with local storage can be a virtualized application that’s been installed locally on a client device. It can also be a virtual machine desktop that’s hosted locally on a client device and taken offline. This architecture is applicable for mobile workers who travel frequently and are often disconnected from the corporate network. These are just some examples of the different use cases for desktop virtualization. For a more in-depth look at the various client compute models and their uses cases, see the GTSI white paper “Insights into Alternative Client Compute Models – Comparing Approaches and Sharing Best Practices.”

Why Should I Adopt Desktop Virtualization Now?

There appears to be a convergence of several technologies and industry trends that is leading to broader adoption of desktop virtualization across businesses today. Fast, ubiquitous access to the network (i.e., corporate LAN, WAN, Internet) with gigabit connections and the use of Wi-Fi and 3G, has made centralization of resources such as applications and desktops possible. The continuous maturation and adoption of server virtualization technologies has not only enabled the basic concept of hosting virtual desktops on servers in the data center, but has optimized the end-user experience and has made it extremely simple for IT to manage. Even the adoption of this new paradigm called "cloud computing" has spurred discussions and solutions around provisioning desktops in the "cloud." The basic tenets of cloud computing are on-demand, self provisioning, and always available. End users have grown to expect more from IT and it is no longer a stretch to expect applications and desktops to share these same principles. This leads back to the point made earlier in this article; that people and applications are the most important elements of your organization.

Desktop virtualization is technology that enables people to have access to their applications. Desktop virtualization allows your business to meet the growing demands and expectations of your end users. It allows IT to be dynamic, agile, and efficient. It provides your business with viable means to address common issues revolving around data security and privacy through the centralization of data. It provides your business with a mechanism to be more energy-efficient through the use of thin clients. It allows your business to delay the capital purchase of new PCs by repurposing and prolonging the life of existing PCs. Desktop virtualization can provide an instant backup and recovery solution for your desktop environment, and it makes work-from-home and bring-your-own-PC programs closer to mainstream reality. It can allow a more seamless and less painful migration to a new operating system environment such as Windows 7 which a majority of organizations will likely undertake in the coming months. All these benefits can be derived from desktop virtualization. At the end of the day, it comes down to the two core business elements of people plus applications and desktop virtualization allows your business to be great at both.