by
Brian Madden
It's been exactly one year since I wrote “Prediction: VDI will be ready for wholesale desktop replacement in 2010. Here's how we'll solve the problems to get there.” Since that whole article was me making predictions about how things would be in two years, I thought it would be cool to do a half-way point “check up” to see whether I have any chance of being right when the June 2010 deadline hits.
In case you don’t remember last year’s article, my basic point was that while VDI didn’t make sense for mainstream users in June 2008, the technical limitations would be solved within two years. As such, VDI would be an option for “mainstream” desktops by June 2010. (As a point of clarification, I didn’t suggest that VDI use was going to “explode” or even become mainstream by June 2010. I just suggested that all the technical components allowing this to happen would be in place by 2010.)
Last year’s prediction was based on four requirements
When I wrote that VDI would be ready in two years, I centered my prediction around four key technical capabilities that were needed:
- Single disk image for many users
- Remote display protocols that are indistinguishable from local
- Local / offline VDI
- Broader compatibility for app virtualization
(For more details about what I meant for each of these, read the original article.)
Where are these requirements today?
Now in order to figure out how far along we are towards “wholesale desktop replacement,” let’s go through these four predictions one-by-one and look at where we are today.
1. Single disk image for many users
This was about the ability for many users to share a single disk image. As of last year, I think the only option for doing this was Citrix Provisioning Server, although it didn't work offline.
What’s changed since June 2008?
There have been a lot of changes in the past year around the concept of the single disk image. First of all, VMware released their Scalable Virtual Images (SVI) as “linked clones” and hooked them into View via View Composer. Citrix Provisioning Server now works offline. We also have storage companies (like NetApp) who can do flex cloning on the volume, folder, or file level. And let’s not forget Atlantis Computing whose new ILIO product looks really strong here.
Are we will on track for this to be “solved” by June 2010?
Yes.
2. Remote display protocols that are indistinguishable from local
What’s changed since June 2008?
Remote display protocols are always a compromise between user experience and bandwidth. When I called for improvements in remote protocols last year, I wasn't suggesting that we do the impossible with perfect remoting over slow connections. I just meant that the protocol itself should not be a limiting factor.
And here too we've made great progress since June 2009. Back then the only really high quality protocols were PC-over-IP and Qumranet's Spice. RDP and ICA were there, but they each had a lot of problems with "every day" apps that users would encounter when connecting to full desktops. (No ability to support Flash video in a way that was actually useful.)
What a huge difference a year makes! Citrix has added all sorts of capabilities to ICA when running on XenDesktop (including Flash remoting). Microsoft's RDP 7 looks like it's going to be hugely popular and promises some pretty amazing performance, complete with out-of-the-box Aero glass remoting and multimedia redirection support. Teradici released a version of PC-over-IP that will work on the WAN, and they're working with VMware to create a software-only implementation.
Even smaller companies are getting involved. Wyse updated TCX and Quest updated EOP. All-in-all it was a great year for remote display protocols!
Are we will on track for this to be “solved” by June 2010?
Yes.
3. Local / offline VDI
This was the ability to run a virtual machine locally on a client device, thereby removing the need for a remote display protocol altogether and "solving" the offline problem.
What’s changed since June 2008?
Again, quite a bit has changed here! The biggest is the fact that the term “client hypervisor” wasn’t really known last year. But in June 2009 there are two shipping today (Virtual Computer and Neocleus) with VMware and Citrix promising to ship theirs by the end of 2009. Each of these client hypervisor environments will handle client-to-server synchronization, encryption, etc.
Are we will on track for this to be “solved” by June 2010?
Yes.
4. Broader compatibility for app virtualization
Last year I wrote that in order for the whole "shared image" concept to work, we needed 100% application virtualization compatibility so that we could use ANY application in our managed desktops.
What’s changed since June 2008?
The biggest change here is that I have shifted my focus on how I think about application virtualization. In 2008, I was focused on compatibility levels. (i.e. if an app virtualization solution supported 96% of all the world's apps in 2008, I wanted to see it support 98% of all the world's apps in 2009.) However, I'm starting to realize this might not be realistic.
That said, I also realized that the app virtualization tools need to evolve how they're used. Instead of just simply focusing on admins distributing apps to users, we also need to be able to support the concept of "user installed apps." And I think that might actually be a bit more important that broader app compatibility. Fortunately there’s a lot of progress being made. Just yesterday Mokafive announced a v2 product that supports both user-installed apps and disk image "layering." On top of that, a start-up company called Viewfinity is doing interesting things here. And Atlantis Computing. And AppSense. And InstallFree. So really there's a lot going on here, albeit in a slightly different way than I thought.
Are we will on track for this to be “solved” by June 2010?
Yes. (Via a combination of “user installed apps” and “layering”)
Bottom line: We’re 100% on track
Taking all four of these technical capabilities into consideration, I think we're in pretty good shape for a June 2010 landing. The only overall comment I have is that I think all four of these technical capabilities working together will be the true "win" that makes this all possible. So instead of checking off our list, 1-2-3-4, imagine what could happen if we combined each of these things in different ways. For example:
- Increasing application compatibility is really a combination of #1 (Disk image management with layering) and #4, user-installed apps.
- Remote display protocols (#2) will work well via he LAN, but WAN environments may need the applicaiton running locally, say, in a client hypervisor (#3)
- Client hypervisors (#3) can be used to hide / deliver apps that cannot easily be virtualized (#4)
Evolution of VDI –> “Desktop Virtualization”
There’s one more glaring thing I got wrong in last year’s article, namely, I referred to everything as “VDI.” At the time I used the term generically to describe the overall concept, but now I'm much more careful to use the term "desktop virtualization" to cover the whole space. "VDI," on the other hand, is only the specific type of desktop virtualization where you use a remote display protocol to connect to a Windows desktop OS running in a VM. Other flavors of desktop virtualization include client hypervisors, terminal services, OS streaming, etc. So if I were writing this today, I’d probably not quite refer to things like I did last year.
So what do you think? Is everything going to be ready next June? What capabilities are we missing here?
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