Desktop Virtualization - Options..

From the time desktop PCs began to appear within the corporate / Federal environment in significant numbers, IT departments have been struggling to get their arms around distributed desktop and application management. The work of managing and deploying software updates to the various desktop operating systems and associated application software has required a huge amount of IT time and budget. In the early 1980s, the first electronic software distribution (ESD) solutions were introduced to help ease this challenge. For the past 20 years, the industry has continued to struggle with the issue of how to better deploy, maintain, and manage distributed desktop resources. The desktop management story has continued to unfold with both successes and failures ever since.

One early alternative that IT organizations implemented to varying degrees and with varying success has been thin client computing. More recently, with the advent of server, desktop, and application virtualization technologies, new solutions have emerged as alternatives to traditional desktop and application deployment methods. In fact, these new solutions are alternatives to traditional desktops and applications themselves. With these emerging technologies has come a great deal of confusion about the different technologies and approaches, how the various approaches work, the available vendor solutions for each, and how to select the right solutions for the mix of use cases within a specific organization. There is also

confusion about what these solutions really include and what it takes to implement them, as well as confusion around variations in language used to describe the solutions and features.

For example, even the basic term desktop virtualization is used to mean a variety of different things. Is desktop virtualization done on the desktop or on the server? Does desktop virtualization include applications? Is server virtualization required for desktop virtualization? How does desktop virtualization relate to application virtualization? What’s the difference between application virtualization and application streaming? And do I really need to go for a desktop virtualization?

The following posts on this topic will try to give more inputs on the different technologies available and will also try to recommend the technology / solution suitable for certain set users or departments.

The following factors are considered when preparing this;

• The critical business and technical challenges faced by today’s IT departments and user communities
• The various types of use cases for desktop and application delivery
• The technical architectures and solutions that are available and emerging to address deploying
• desktops and applications
• Key considerations when selecting and implementing solutions
• A high-level overview of the key vendor solutions, along with matrices on currently available
• products and key technical features