Client Virtualization: Where Does It Fit?

Come to Catalyst to find out details and discuss with your peers.

I recently blogged about my doctor brother’s poor experiences with a new client virtualization system installed in his hospital.  Further discussions within our team (Chris Wolf, Simon Bramfitt and myself) about client dialogues we have held on this subject have revealed a common thread:  Client virtualization economics favor only certain use cases.  Vendors would love to have you virtualize every client device in your enterprise, but many are just not cost justifiable.  The questions to be asking are:  What business problems are you looking to solve in your client device environment?  What use cases reduce costs when virtualized?  Do you already have a desktop management solution in place that is giving you operational cost reduction already?

In talking with clients, I’ve found that there are generally two situations that cause enterprises to look for solutions to their desktop problems:  First is security for remote and mobile workforce.  The need to keep sensitive corporate data in the data center or within a controlled security perimeter and off of laptops or remote desktops is a large driver for client virtualization (either presentation virtualization or server hosted desktop virtualization can address this problem).  The second is to get a handle on managing desktops, laptops, and other client devices in the enterprise.  The second situation can be tricky, however.  If the customer has already deployed a good application virtualization and desktop management solution (e.g. Symantec Altiris, Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, or Novell Zenworks), moving to a virtual desktop infrastructure may not save much money in the long run. Moving to a desktop virtualization solution has to be a strategic (business) decision not a tactical (IT) one.

At Catalyst Europe (April 19-22, Prague, Czech Republic) we have organized the “Getting Started with Client Virtualization” topic to address these questions.  In addition, we have created a new in depth half-day workshop to go through assessing where each client virtualization technology can best fit into the enterprise client device management puzzle.  For reading this blog, you can get a discounted conference pass at the price of €999.00 by using the promotion code “INSIDER” when you register.

[Posted by: Richard Jones]

Comments

[Corelink Data Centers: Colocation]

Thanks for the interesting and informative post. I look forward to more in the future.