Desktop virt used to cope with Starbucks workforce security

Commissioned by Citrix

Wonder if the guys doing the study had any idea what answers would please their employer?

One thing I didn't see either in the article or the press release, was if they were talking about company equipment used remotely by employees, or personal equipment used for company stuff.

Oh dear god.

I used to be a support lackey for a well modelling / reporting application that was deployed over Citrix. 90% of the calls I took were down to Citrix taking a shit with it's clothes on rather than the application itself.

Barry Phillips, CMO at Wanova

There is tremendous value in desktop virtualization for reducing operational expenses (OPEX) through centralizing desktop image management in the data center. IT is able to manage one copy of Windows and one application copy centrally, instead of a separate copy of Windows and a copy of each application on thousands of PCs. While centralization has enabled IT to reduce operational expenses, it has come at the expense of the users. Users want the same or better PC experience as the PC they have always had. They want to use multimedia apps, they will need to operate over a slow connection or disconnected from the network completely, and they want to install their own apps. This is especially the case as PCs become more powerful for essentially the same price.

At the same time, organizations are having a hard time justifying the capital expenditure (CAPEX) of VDI. Typically, VDI supports 20 to 40 users per server and requires expensive, high I/O storage. This equates to anywhere between 250 to 500 servers in order to support 10,000 users, in addition to the networking gear and increased bandwidth requirements. Complexity of the configuration and ongoing management in terms of hardware and “tuning” the protocol is also difficult.

Specific to security, disk and file based encryption are being used by most large enterprises today. Bitlocker is included as a part of Windows 7 Enterprise. This enables IT to secure the data without impairing the experience of the user.

For desktop virtualization to be truly successful, it will need to provide the centralized image management that IT needs as well as the real experience of a PC that users demand – all without breaking the budget.

Benefits of the Virtual Desktop.

That was very well written, Barry, but it's meaning here may be lost as it's (mostly?) techies that hang round here. Any Virtual Desktop I've seen, if at all to be usable, required masses of bandwidth (as you say in your piece) and I was not that impressed ! Unlike the old-fashioned method of the app running locally and the data being accessed remotely. And there are currently various methods of the one copy of Windows and the one copy of the application to the desktop.

One method I've seen, having a local image server that reimaged a PC once the NIC cable was transferred to a special socket in the switch room and the machine rebooted. Apps were standard MSI packages wrapped up in some "unattended-installer-app" that delivered them to the PC on reboot. Hardly unattended remote backup, but it did the job.

So to conclude: The main benefit of Desktop Virtualization is it totally eliminates the need of a technician to visit the PC, reduces the number of on-the-site people required and saves money. Management always like to hear about ways to save money.

ps: You use too many acronyms in that piece ..

Yay for Desktop Virtualization !

A brilliant way to slow the pace of capitalism - since Citrix often spends half the day without being able to do anything productive.

And we'll all have securely encrypted disks for our data, protected by a password of the 1234 caliber.

Not to mention the rise in costs when the Helldesk jockeys have to take their car for a 50 minute drive to go clean up Yet Another Manager's Mangled laptop.

Yeah, I can't wait to see the post-rollout ROI analysis.