Search results matching tag 'Management'

Parallels jumps into Mac management via SCCM arena, plus they add hypervisor and VM management

Gabe Knuth — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 04:03:00 GMT

Last week I had a call with Parallels, which was my first briefing with them in quite a while. I'm a Parallels Desktop user on my Mac, but besides that Parallels rarely comes up in the desktop virtualization space outside of that (other than a few "what if" scenarios from time to time). What I learned was that earlier this year they released a product called Parallels Management Suite for Microsoft System Center, the main feature of which is to allow you to manage Mac endpoints via Microsoft SCCM.

The product works by installing an agent on the Mac endpoint that is either deployed manually or via a network discovery install. In the latter scenario, SCCM is directed to discover macs on the network, establish an SSH connection to them with predefined admin credentials, and install the software. After the agent is installed, admins are able to deploy software and scripts, inventory software and hardware, and take advantage of SCCM's native reporting functionality. Many of the tasks available to Windows admins are also available to Mac admins.

The only caveat to application deployments that I was made aware of is that the application must support silent installs. I'm not sure how many applications this eliminates from consideration, but I did confirm that you can package Automator scripts that can be used to automatically install applications that require user interaction.

This sounds great, but it isn't the only product on the market that integrates Macs into SCCM. In fact, it's not even the only product from a vendor in our coverage area. When Dell acquired Quest, they also acquired QMX, which is as close to the same product as possible. There are some key advantages that QMX has at the moment, though. First, QMX can deploy OS images to the endpoints. Second, QMX also features management extensions that support iOS and Android devices. Both of these features are on the road map for Parallels Manage Suite, but are not yet part of the product.

What sets it apart from QMX, though, is the ability to manage the hypervisor component and deploy virtual machines, too. I don't mean to imply that it's not possible for QMX to do this via scripts, but Parallels has specifically added functionality to manage Parallels Desktop Enterprise from SCCM (not the cheaper Parallels Desktop). This includes both managing the hypervisor configuration itself and deploying virtual machines. Parallels Management Suite also adds remote support, which I don't believe is a feature of QMX (although I could be wrong).

Still, the only way to de-provision a virtual machine is with scripts. That, combined with the fact that the management agent must live on the host (so the entire device is managed by SCCM) means that this is probably not a comprehensive BYOC solution yet. Future updates, I hope, will bring the ability to manage the hypervisor on machines that are not domain-joined, like contractor laptops. Parallels doesn't have a Windows client hypervisor product, so it would be welcoming to see that or to some other integration with VMware, VirtualBox, or Client Hyper-V, if only for the sake of VM portability.

Still, it's interesting to see some movement in this space beyond Dell QMX, and I think that centralized management of Macs has value in many organizations, especially when you combine that with centralized management of VMs. Prior to this product, you'd have to have multiple solutions (like MokaFive Suite + QMX), but Parallels is trying to bring it all together into one solution. You can argue that QMX + MokaFive gives you more features, but that also brings added complexity. Don't forget, too, that VMware is making waves in the Mac BYOC/Client Virtualization space with VMware Fusion Pro and Horizon Mirage, so I expect to see some back and forth here.

Parallels Management Suite is available today, and retails for $30/user. It works with System Center 2007 and 2012.

VDI Smackdown: Head-to-head analysis of Citrix XenDesktop, Citrix VIAB, Dell vWorkspace, Microsoft Windows8/Server2012 and VMware View 5.2 + more

rspruijt — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 17:36:00 GMT

Are you looking for an independent overview of desktop virtualization solutions and curious about the different strategy questions? Do you want detailed information about the features and functions each desktop virtualization vendor is offering!? If so the VDI Smackdown you definitely must read!
In the current market there is an increasing demand for unbiased information about desktop virtualization solutions. This white paper is focused on solutions that are anticipated to have an important role in desktop virtualization deployments. An overview of available features of each solution has been created to allow an understanding and comparison of capabilities.

The latest solutions included in the feature matrix are: Citrix XenDesktop 5.6FP1, Citrix VDI-in-a-Box 5.2, Dell vWorkspace 7.6, Microsoft RDVH Windows8/Server 2012 and VMware View 5.2; The English whitepaper can be downloaded here. The Japanese version will be available as soon as possible.

Empowering the end-user by giving access to Windows, Web and Mobile applications so he can access data and information systems from both private and public datacenters regardless of the device or location is the ultimate strategic objective.
The delivery of the classic (Windows) desktop interface can be divided in two segments:

the classic desktop and laptop, running Windows, Linux or Mac OS X;
the virtual desktop running in the datacenter or local on the classic workstation.

In essence “desktop virtualization” is the de-coupling of the desktop, operating system and the applications from the underlying endpoint or device. This kind of virtualization can be subdivided into two types:

With the first type applications are executed remotely, server hosted, and presented at the endpoint via a remote display protocol.
With the second type applications are executed at the endpoint, client-side and presented locally.

Making Windows, Web and Mobile applications available to the end-user, regardless of the technology being used, is an important strategic objective of an advanced IT infrastructure. The Virtual Desktop (vDesktop) is an essential component in the range of Application and Desktop delivery solutions and in essence, it provides the following functions:

Flexibility: Detach the vDesktop from the endpoint; Several vDesktops can be used next to one another
BYO: enables delivery of applications and desktops for BYO scenario’s;
Access: vDesktop works independently of location, endpoint and network;
Security: Server Hosted – VDI; data in the computing center;
Freedom: Every user can have his own desktop with administrator privileges when needed;
Management: Centrally managed and hardware independent;
Legacy: It is simple to offer legacy applications on a state-of-the-art platform;
Sustainability: Power Management, handling the necessary resources in an efficient manner

The transition to a dynamic and optimized desktop is causing many IT organizations to reevaluate traditional IT operations, deployment, delivery, packaging, support, and management methods.
Desktop virtualization is a key component in the optimized desktop. It’s important to have a Vision and Strategy around application and desktop delivery and enterprise mobility. Designing, building, managing and maintaining the desktop virtualization infrastructure using the right Technologies, corresponding vendors and products is an important step. We see a lot organizations primarily focusing on products and vendors and lacking a clear and profound vision and strategy. This approach is fine for a point solutions but a proper vision and strategy is crucial for a vNext optimized desktop. How can the vision and strategy be successful? Success = Vision x Execution x Adoption!

The following discussions and corresponding topics should be part of the optimized desktop strategy:

What are the use-cases? Does the use-case require Desktop Virtualization?
VD-why, what do you want to achieve, a business enabler, overall cost of ownership (TCO) and cost reducer?
What is the business-case? What do you expect as a ROI?
How do you deliver applications to users in a Bring Your Own (BYO) or Choose Your Own (CYO) scenario?
What’s your desktop delivery and migration strategy for Windows 7/Windows 8?
What’s the user experience using Multimedia, Video/Voice, 2D/3D applications?
Is Unified Communications and VoIP functionality within VDI needed? Is it supported by the VDI and UC-vendor?
What are the user expectations of the vDesktop? Are users involved in a proof of concept and pilot? What are their acceptation criteria?
What endpoints do we support and facilitate and what is the role of these devices in the end-user experience? Are the endpoints managed by the IT organization?
Do you want to deliver windows and web applications to mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones via VDI? What does the user wants? What is your enterprise mobility strategy?
What is the impact of Secure Access and Secure Networking solutions on mobile devices while connecting to the vDesktop? What is the user experience with these secure access solutions?
Is there a supported agent for the OS/endpoint? What is the User Experience with this agent? What is the feature and future roadmap of these agents? Is agentless via HTML(5) included and important?
Is image deployment and management part of the (virtual) Desktop Strategy?
How do you design and build the user’s profile and his ‘workspace’? Does Application virtualization fit into this strategy? The ‘User Environment Management' Smackdown can be helpful.
Do we need a vMachine based image management solution? How do we design, build and maintain the (golden) Image(s)?
Do you need context awareness? Based on user/role, device, location and various settings is access to application resources controlled and enforced when needed?
What is your application readiness assessment strategy? Are Windows 7, Windows 8, VDI, application virtualization and x64 included?
How are Windows applications delivered within the vDesktop? Unattended or manual installation, application virtualization or the applications are part of the (golden) image? What is the strategy?
Does the end-user needs the ability to install and update applications? Is User Installed Applications functionality needed? Does the user have the correct privileges to install or update software?
Do you need local or centralized storage? What storage optimization (IOPS/latency) technology is being used?
What is the VDI impact on storage and how does it affect the business case?
Do we focus on stateless (non-persistent) and/or stateful (hybrid/persistent) images? What is, for example, the impact on storage, manageability, security, legal and business-case?
Windows 8 or Windows 7 as core guest OS platform? x64 or x86?
How does the solution scale? What do we need from a scalability point of view? Is there a validated design?
What is the performance and bandwidth impact on the network infrastructure; LAN, WAN, WLAN, Mobile;
Licensing; VDI solution, guest and client operating system, Client Access Licenses and (Business) Applications.
Is Antivirus needed? Inside the VM or as layer on the Hypervisor? What is the real performance impact of Antivirus?
Is the VDI solution as a whole highly available? Is that built-in or are additional planning and solutions needed to get high availability? Is a highly available vDesktop needed?
Is the IT department able to adopt the technology with right knowledge and skills? What subject matter experts are needed to get and keep the VDI solution up and running in production environment? Is this expertise available? Who has overview of the complete VDI solution stack?
How does the desktop virtualization solution fit into existing deployment and management tools?

Bottom Line: What’s your current Enterprise Mobility and Desktop Delivery strategy?!

Get a head start! Download our complete, in-depth, and independent whitepaper. We try to provide accurate, clear, complete and usable information. We appreciate your feedback. If you have any comments, corrections or suggestions for improvements of this document we want to hear from you! Feedback!? rsp@pqr.nl or twitter

VMware launches Horizon Suite, but it still has a ways to go to meet expectations. Here's our complete analysis:

Gabe Knuth — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 13:01:00 GMT

Today, VMware is launching Horizon Suite, which we first learned about at VMworld last fall. Coming out of VMworld, I remember having the impression that despite being let down in the past by announcements that were never seen through to releases, VMware might still "get it" when it comes to the big picture of end user computing (EUC). Today's Horizon Suite release represents the marriage of all the EUC technologies and products that VMware has assembled over the years, and is in large part focused on behind-the-scenes things like wiring together the backends and integrating everything together. The primary components of Horizon Suite Horizon View 5.2, Horizon Mirage 4.0, and Horizon Workspace 1.0. Horizon Mobile (for EMM) will also a part of this suite (sometime later in 2013), as are updated mobile Suite-wide mobile clients (which Jack has written about separately). Let's dig into the remaining components:

Horizon View 5.2

Part of today's Horizon Suite release involves renaming the core technologies, so we have a new name and minor version number for VMware View. Now called "Horizon View," the 5.2 release also brings with it the addition of an HTML5 client that leverages VMware's "Blast" protocol. Blast is based on the same technology that runs AppBlast, which we talked about after it was announced at VMworld 2011. AppBlast, for those that don't remember (or have forgotten) was a technology designed to deliver seamless applications from the datacenter via HTML5. It has never been released as an actual product, rather, it was intended to be built into various products that VMware already has.

You'll note that the "App" part of AppBlast has disappeared, and that's because this release only has the ability to deliver full desktops to users rather than seamless applications. VMware says that single application seamless Windows is still their ultimate goal, but that's really hard to do via an HTML5 client and they just wanted to get this technology out there. (I've heard through other channels that the lack of seamless app delivery is because of the way browsers work, namely that browser window borders must be present. Imagine delivering a dozen applications via AppBlast, only to have each one have a browser window around it. That experience is less than optimal, and confusing for users.)

VMware Blast is built a little differently than other HTML5 remote desktop solutions. Rather than using a gateway component to translate or re-encode a remote desktop protocol like other solutions do, Blast was designed from the ground up to deliver pixels straight from within the VM in essentially the same way as PCoIP. This also means the scalability is on par with PCoIP, since little-to-no extra overhead is introduced. Without translation in the way, Blast excels at remoting the desktop itself. Plus, all the traffic runs through the same Horizon Gateway that secures all the other communications between your endpoints and the datacenter.

Disappointingly, there are many limitations that overshadow Blast's great video performance. For instance, there is no multimedia or Flash redirection which would allow the browser to interpret the data natively rather than sending it over the wire. There's also no USB support, no ThinPrint, and no audio support, or no webcam support either. The end result is a protocol that delivers a great looking experience that's not all that usable. Perhaps in a pinch, or in certain situations it will be useful at scale, but ultimately it's behind the curve when compared to more mature HTML5 products from Citrix and Ericom, among others.

A few other aspects of View 5.2 worth noting:

The AppShift technology that we were shown at VMworld is now part of View. AppShift introduces gestures and UI changes that make it easier to use Windows and Windows desktop applications on touch-based devices. If you want to see it in action, Ruben Spruijt recorded a video during the keynote of Daniel Beveridge's demo. This looks pretty cool, and I'm happy to see it make it into the product. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't dubious when it was announced.
View 5.2 finally includes the support for the Nvidia Virtual Graphics Platform that we learned about at VMworld Europe 2011. This will allow for remoting of 3D applications (with the appropriate GPUs in your View servers).
View is SAML-aware now, so when you sign into the Horizon Workspace (more on that later), your credentials are used not only for apps and data, but also to log you into the View desktop.
Microsoft Lync communicator is officially supported via View. (We assume this is via PCoIP only since Blast doesn't do audio.)

Overall impression: AppShift looks cool, Blast is falls way short, SAML integration is nice to have.

Horizon Mirage 4.0

VMware bought Wanova last May, but since then they haven't done anything with the technology. It's still been version 3.0—the version that Wanova had been shipping since 2011. Today's Horizon launch includes a new version of Mirage (now 4.0) along with a name change to "Horizon Mirage."The biggest new feature is that you can now configure layers for single applications. Prior to this release, Mirage could be broken down into three layers—Base, Apps, and User—which were composited together and delivered to an endpoint. The 4.0 update now lets you effectively package applications into their own layers, which you can then deliver based on policies (specific machines, groups, departments, etc.). It gives more flexibility when it comes to managing applications, even letting you deliver ThinApp packages as layers (although I'm not sure why you'd do that).

At this stage, there's still no integration between Mirage and View. Our sources claim it's because Mirage doesn't perform well when used in a View environment. This would make sense, since it was designed for desktops that are notoriously over-powered. Performance hits on a single desktop or laptop would likely go unnoticed, but when concentrated on a VDI host those hits would be multiplied and quickly become noticeable. The official response for VMware confirms this (if you read between the lines):

It remains our goal to fully extend the benefits of Horizon Mirage's image layering technology across both the physical and virtual desktop environments. That being said, it is important to note that Mirage and View were initially conceived with different objectives in mind and so interoperability at the underlying resource level is not yet optimised: some of the dynamics of how our agent uses CPU and Network in a distributed environment may be sub-optimal when deployed on a shared resource like a VDI server.

So this is unfortunate, big time. I was of the opinion that integrating the technology into View would be the first thing done, but that appears to be on the back burner. As it is today, Mirage is VMware's physical desktop solution, meaning that you still have to have separate physical and virtual desktop strategies. Sure, that's how it worked in the past, but they didn't make the change I was hoping to see.

What's interesting is that there is a virtualization play for Mirage, as VMware also views it as a BYOC solution, allowing users to use their own machines at work via a corporate VM, managed by Mirage. In fact, VMware even includes a copy of Fusion Pro (the centrally-managed version of Fusion) with each Mirage license. You might be thinking "That's a Mac product. What about Windows?" We thought that, too. VMware believes the most common BYOC use case one that involves bringing Macs into the workplace, so they've bundled the Mac version of their hypervisor for that specific use case. Perhaps this is because there is no "Pro" version of Workstation that could also be bundled? [UPDATE Feb 25: VMware told us that the Mirage license for Fusion Pro is also valid for VMware player for deploying Mirage-managed VMs to Windows and Linux clients. "But wait," you're thinking, "Isn't VMware Player free already?" We thought that too. Turns out that it was free for non-commercial use, so now with Mirage you're legally allowed to use it for corporate stuff. VMware also asked us to point out that you can use both Fusion and VMware Player for corporate-owned laptops too. It's not just a BYO solution. Noted.]

Overall impression: Just a minor change, frustratingly slow integration since we're near the one year mark after the acquisition.

Horizon Workspace 1.0

The glue that binds the Horizon Suite together is Horizon Workspace, launched today for the first time. Workspace aggregates everything in the suite together into one management and end-user package. From Workspace, users have access to their files via what we once called Horizon Data, their web and SaaS applications via the original Horizon App Manager, and their desktops via Horizon View. Mirage is not integrated into Workspace, but it also doesn't need to be since it's only a physical solution (or Fusion) that's managed via the Mirage management component.

Workspace looks cool, and it appears this is where most of the development work has been focused of late, the bulk of which has been regarding the integration of all the platforms. It had to happen some time, but looking around for killer features doesn't result in much. Accessing the data, apps, and desktops is great, but as you look into each of those you find a few things that you would expect to be there that are not.

The "files" functionality is meant to rival other cloud file sync providers like Box and Dropbox. It could be said that it does too good a job of that, because there's no integration with other file storage solutions outside of Horizon itself. Where other solutions allow you to hook into your local file stores or to other cloud services (thereby letting you leave them in place while still providing sync and access to those files on other devices), Horizon Data exists as its own "all-or-nothing" silo. (We were told that integration with existing file shares, SharePoint, and other cloud-based file sync services are all "design goals.") There is some integration with Office Server that allows users to view Office files through the Horizon Workspace, but they can't be edited. If a user wants to edit a file, they need to either find it via the Horizon Data client on their device (which works like Dropbox), or download it, edit it, and re-upload it into the system.

Another gripe is that desktops you can access through Workspace appear to be limited solely to View desktops despite hearing about XenApp integration for, I believe, two years. Also absent is Teradici Arch integration, but that may be understandable since that's only in Tech Preview at the moment. It would seem to be an easy inclusion, though, since it leverages the View connection broker. Finally, Workspace doesn't have any kind of "open in" intelligence in the web browser. So it can't automatically stream a ThinApp package to your workstation or launch a remote View desktop session if you click on a file that can't be handled by your local client. [UDPATE Feb 20 8:45am, we also confirmed that Workspace can only connect users to View desktops, so too bad if you were using View to broker connections to Remote Desktop Session Hosts.]

Overall impression: You have to start somewhere, and this is it. Hopefully VMware can make the updates fast and furious.

Pricing & Licensing

You can buy the entire Horizon Suite for $300 per named user. That's for a perpetual license, not per-year. That includes View, Mirage, Fusion Pro, and Workspace (SaaS app integration, Horizon Data, etc.) That seems like a really great price for so much and significantly cheaper than everything Citrix bundles together.

You can buy the components individually too. View is $250 per concurrent user on its own, and there's now only one edition of View that includes all the features. (Well, we think it includes all of them. We asked vCenter Operations Manager for View was included since VMware shamefully charged $100 per user(!) extra for that in the past, but VMware didn't get back to us on that.)

Mirage and Workspace can each be had on their own for $150 per named user.

As mentioned in the opening section, this Horizon Suite is ultimately supposed to include the Horizon Mobile (EMM) components, but they're not in there yet and we don't know whether or not that addition will affect the overall price of the suite.

Summary

VMware might understand the space as well as I'd hoped, but it sure looks like they're having trouble executing. These products seem to carry so much potential that has yet to be realized, and it seems like all we do is speculate (and hint) about the cool things that could be done, then wait to see if anything catches on. Perhaps the recent changes within VMware will spur that on, but as it stands VMware has a long way to go to catch up to competitors in a lot of areas. It's pretty bad when you make Citrix look like they can turn on a dime.

Managing Windows 8 doesn't differ much from managing Windows 7, at least not in ways that matter

Gabe Knuth — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 05:03:00 GMT

Most people, myself included, are happy to take the wait-and-see approach to Windows 8. This is partly because we're now only fifteen months away from the end of Windows XP, knee-deep in Windows 7 rollouts, and partly because of lack of inspiration. The fact is, Windows 8 has entered the corporate world with barely a whimper. Spare a few companies with a handful of Windows 8 machines (presumably for testing) and the one Surface RT tablet that each company bought for testing, almost nobody is actually looking at using it on an ongoing basis.

I wanted to take a step back, though, and rather than spend another article bitching about Windows 8, I wanted to dedicate some time to looking at the big picture. Assuming Windows 8 makes it into the enterprise consciousness at some point, what are aspects of it that we need to know about? Today, I want to look at management, but in future articles, we'll look at things like devices and the Office/Office365/SkyDrive ecosystem as they pertain to the enterprise. Let's dig in.

Management in Windows 8

Managing Windows 8 revolves around SCCM 2012 SP1, which was released a few weeks ago despite the fact that Windows 8 has been out for several months. Any widespread enterprise adoption was surely stalled because of this cart-before-horse scenario, but it's out now so I can't complain that much. In addition to SCCM 2012 SP1, you can also manage Windows 8 devices with InTune. I'm curious to find out how many companies are using InTune, because when I ran the idea by a security director I know his response was "I just threw up in my mouth."

For the vast majority of enterprise situations today, managing Windows 8 via SCCM is the same as Windows 7. The changes (and the reason for SP1) come from the so-called "Windows 8 Applications" that run in Metro (which we call TileWorld). Since "Windows 8 Applications" is rather confusing, I'll call them TileWorld applications or .appx applications. .appx is the extension of the application package that you get from the Windows Store.

Deploying TileWorld apps is done in one of a few ways. If you've created your own application, you can "sideload" the application by deploying the .appx file just as you would any other application. That's straightforward enough, but it gets a little dicey when you start to try to deploy apps that live in the Windows Store. Deploying those applications is done by more or less deploying a link to the application in the Windows Store (along with the authorization to install/use it). The link is opened via the Config Manager App Portal, which takes the user to the appropriate place in the Windows Store. From there, they still need to buy it and install it on their own. You read that right…all you're deploying is a shortcut. The user still has to do things, and we all know what that can lead to.

SCCM is also used to provision Windows To Go USB sticks by capturing a WIM from an existing computer or from the installation media. That WIM is used to create a Windows To Go Creator Package, which is then deployed via SCCM to a user just like any other application. The user launches the app, plugs in a USB stick, and that's that. Of course, users can create them, too (unless you lock it down), but this is the way that IT can provision them automatically.

What sticks out to me is that while all of these features are needed to support Windows 8 and its features/devices, they more or less unnecessary unless IT decides it wants to use them. Does IT have a need to deploy TileWorld .appx apps? Not really. (Frankly, are organizations developing TileWorld apps?) Does IT have a need to deploy Windows To Go? Perhaps, but I've yet to hear of anyone doing it in a widespread way. The end result is that everything you need to manage your users is there today with SCCM and Windows 7, and moving to Windows 8 doesn't really give you any additional features or flexibility. Sure, there are features like Metered Internet Connection, but that's not what I would call a killer app that drives people towards Windows 8 en masse.

The bottom line, at least in terms of management, is that Windows 8 is more of the same. If you have a need to use and deploy TileWorld apps or to deploy Windows on a USB stick, then there's a solution for you. But if you're like most of the organizations in the world, all that doesn't amount to a hill of beans. You already do what you need to do, and that's not going to help adoption.

Next time, I'll look at Office, Office 365, and SkyDrive to see how those fit in the overall solution that Microsoft is pushing. Until then, keep migrating to Windows 7.

Do you have design principles for VDI? How does VDI fit into your broader infrastructure strategy? - Part 1 of 2

Harry Labana — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 05:01:00 GMT

In October I wrote a post highlighting that the CapEx Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) focus is drowning out OpEx considerations and asked the question why bother with VDI?

This generated some robust comments which essentially argued the following: that the business benefits outweigh the costs; in a mixed PC/Server Based Computing (SBC) environment those costs already exist; benefits of a single architecture for internal and external users; and, even Shawn Bass chimed in with OpEx costs are BS 99.9% of the time so it's a futile discussion. :)

I have no doubt that there are many benefits, but I firmly believe many remain confused and therefore present timid arguments to a CIO. In this two-part post I want to extend that discussion and share some of my observations.

I think people must ask themselves four key questions:

Is there an exciting project that users or execs want/need to succeed?
What is your VDI experience priority?
What are your design principles?
How does VDI fit into your forward-looking infrastructure and app strategy?

I’ll discuss the first three questions in part one and cover question four in part two.

Is there an exciting project that users or execs want/need to succeed?

Paraphrasing innovation guru Clayton Christensen, innovation can be defined into three primary category types:

Sustaining current status quo by adding incremental capability – e.g., VDI for developers, disaster recovery, etc.
Driving efficiency out of status-quo models – e.g., shared VDI models, thin clients, etc.
Enabling new capability – e.g., Bring your own device (BYOD) use cases, more work from home opportunities, real business agility use cases such as M&A

It’s been my experience that type C innovation will generate the most passion and interest, and stands the greatest chance of generating enthusiastic funding for your VDI project, especially in the early stages. If you want evidence of that, just look at how much the VDI industry has marketed the benefits of Windows on iPads even though it’s an occasional use case.

Yet, most people try to build a VDI business case on type A and type B innovation. I tend to yawn when people regurgitate the low-hanging fruit use cases. If that’s your CIO’s primary focus, I have limited hope for your success because your users will not care and will simply hate you for taking away the freedom they think they have with their computer at work. This is usually due to their attachment to a physical object to which they associate an obscenely large amount of value and entitlement.

There have to be real tangible benefits that your business values and your users care about if you want to expand beyond slow-moving, IT-centric niche use case projects, that are too often mired in bureaucracy and politics.

My implementation journey started many years ago before VDI really existed. It began with reimagining a new type of trading floor environment. One that was super-dense, quiet with compute power on demand, representing the most risky user group. At first, this was thought to be impossible, then cost objections were put up until the value to change the workplace architecture was internalized, understood and accepted broadly. Additional use cases grew from there as lessons learned were reinvested to solve new problems and new technology investments were leveraged to improve existing systems. I’ve seen many good examples across industry verticals that started with solving an ambitious problem that galvanized the organization to act.

So my advice is to start with type C innovation use cases, and then go from there, else you’ll probably end up having many of the arguments about OpEx and CapEx that I highlighted in my previous post.

Next, you’re likely to get into the SBC-based on Remote Desktop Services (RDS) vs. VDI (a desktop OS) architecture debate, and bang your head against the wall. I’ve personally been through this and one of the important lessons I learned was it really helped to have a few key design principles. I’ll share some that were key when thinking about a trading floor and I think can also be applied more broadly.

What is your VDI experience priority?

This is a fundamental question to ask. It will help you understand how important your users’ experience is in your project. With respect to SBC vs. VDI, it’s not a case of right or wrong, it’s a question of the type of experience you want to create. If your mindset is that greater density and lower cost are priority, then I think the below image represents the user experience you will likely create.

Fig. 1 - What’s your user experience?

There’s nothing wrong with this if your business problem is solved with cheap affordable transportation that does the job for the majority. Perhaps a harsh analogy, and yes there are many things you can do to optimize SBC environments. In my trading floor use case, this was not the goal. Experience trumped cost. It’s also why I believe that SBC has not replaced, but rather, complemented the PC for the most part despite offering lots of cost benefits.

What are your design principles?

In the vast majority of enterprise environments, even with users of moderate sophistication, you don’t share your desktop/laptop. So why do you expect to with VDI? It’s an IT first vs. user first approach that too often results in a Fig. 1 experience.

In my case, it was a desktop replacement project to build out a new trading floor. We needed a solution to replace the experience as best we could. So, our first design principle was:

It’s a desktop

The next challenge was determining how to build a reliable trading floor and at what cost vs. risk? Lots of options presented themselves, but ultimately it was critical to understand that we didn’t want to pull so many dollars from the project to constantly set off a mousetrap.

Fig. 2 - How many dollars can you steal without setting off the mousetrap?

Clearly SBC was cheaper, but we had experienced Citrix “Black Hole” problems in our traditional XenApp environment. I’ve summarized below scenarios we had experienced due to the Citrix “Black Hole” problems from an old troubleshooting session I attended:

Terminal Services hangs on a server or critical threads in IMA hang on a server - however, IMA on that server responds to DC heart beats - Server appears “healthy” but cannot accept any user connections.
XML service hangs on the XML broker server - Web Interface Server is unable to detect the hang condition - Continues to send user connections to XML broker server.
An application error occurs on problem servers when users connect - Errors prevent application to be launched successfully - Users are directed to this “least loaded” server

When I discussed these challenges with Citrix at the time, a tool called the health check agent (HCA) http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX107531 was proposed as a mitigation strategy. While a perfectly valid suggestion, it did not make sense for my use case. I had to compare the risk of changing what it took to logon to my desktop currently, which was the desktop logon shell, and compare that to adding all the additional features of a XenApp farm that was designed for a different purpose. I had to consider the potential impact of adding other farm components as well. A look forward at Fig. 3 provides some insight.

Fig. 3 - A slide from a 2010 presentation

Clearly in addition to “Black Hole” problems, there were other shared components like the data store that could impact a large number of users. This represented a greater risk than a traditional desktop crashing by itself on the existing trading floor. It’s just not something that made sense for my use case. Out of this the second design principle was born:

Risk boundary of a desktop

The impact of this was that since VDI did not exist at the time, we ended up designing a custom farm solution where all components were self-contained in a single image. Yes we had lots of farms! I used to joke that we should trademark it as the ranch architecture, or the desktop grid/farm. :)

What also became clear as we moved to this model, was that we had to think about ways to determine where to place users on VDI racks. Additionally we had to keep many of the business rules we had for redundancy on the trading floor intact in the new datacenter model. This was one of the many things we had to consider. Having a 1-1 model really simplified us dealing with this transition because we could keep our existing management practices, choose to evolve over time and instead invest in innovation where there were gaps preventing us from moving quickly.

Despite all this, there was still a lot of discussion about the possibility of driving down costs for a subset of the user population using regular XenApp. When considering these arguments, Fig. 1 and the ‘it’s a desktop’ design principle were once again an inspiration.

On a trading floor, compute power was highly valued and a lot of money had been spent to ensure people were provided with high-end machines with a finite amount of compute. Despite efficiency, moving to a shared architecture meant sharing it with others even if there was more to share overall. What we learned early on in user experience testing was that users prefer predictability. For example, if things feel fast one day and slow the next, users get more frustrated vs. something that is more consistent but useable. As we thought through this, it became clear that due to unpredictable application patterns that CPU and memory spikes could hamper predictability beyond our comfort level, even if we kept the number of users sharing these resources to a minimum. This also suited our farm per user approach and the third design principle was written.

Predictable user experience

This led to the decision to use this architecture for all users no matter how we categorized them. We believed that efficiency through greater density for a subset of users who really didn’t need as much compute as a trader would be solved over time by Moore’s Law, at a risk factor that we could accept. With this belief, we stuck to our ‘risk boundary of a desktop’ design principle, and also were able to apply the same management tools, new and existing, consistently across the globe.

You may consider my use case extreme. I’ve had the benefit of talking to hundreds of customers across verticals and industries over the last few years. I think Fig. 4 can help you think about where you want to be in terms of risk and then you can choose the right architecture for your high-value, type C innovation use cases. There is also nothing wrong with having several models for different use cases and risk profiles as you evolve. That is why I continue to believe desktop virtualization has to be thought about more broadly than just VDI for the majority of customers.

Fig. 4 - What’s your risk profile?

Forget about stateless VDI for now

So what does this have to do with CapEx vs. OpEx as discussed in my previous post? Simply put, the focus has to start with solving a problem and implementing quickly. Else your project slows to a halt. To achieve this goal, it is clear to me that:

Persistent VDI is the easier first step – For most customers the pre-requisites for implementing stateless virtual desktops (user personalization, application virtualization, user installed apps solutions, etc.) and completely changing the desktop management processes makes it difficult to get their VDI projects off the ground. As a result, many customers start with persistent VDI or a mixed environment and then migrate over time to a stateless VDI environment.

However, why even concern yourself with stateless just for VDI? How much will it matter over time with so many other conflicting priorities? If you have use cases that existing single image VDI solutions help you achieve - sure go for it. In reality, I suspect that this is a minority use case that could just as easily be addressed with SBC solutions.

The desktop is very hard to standardize across the board, even in enterprises that are 1000 users. Sure, in an ideal solution the user should not have to care about the moving parts (PC,SBC,VDI, etc.), they should only care about the human computer interface and their information. Has anybody at scale achieved this to match his or her desktop experience? That’s a serious question, because I’d really like to learn more from somebody who’s been successful…

If you’re a bit of a wannabe physics geek like me, you’ll understand from thermodynamics, that entropy teaches us that the natural state of the universe is disorder. In other words, no matter what you do, users will keep changing and you’ll always be chasing configuration drift and trying to capture, define and manage that state.

Instead, why not just focus on making the 1-1 model work better over time. It’s great to see storage solutions like Atlantis (full disclosure I am an advisor) evolving to solve many of the CapEx challenges for this model. During Citrix Synergy Barcelona in October I was pleased to see that the 1-1 model is now a recognized workload for service providers and even Reverse Seamless can be used with it now to solve for those problem apps! The large players like Cisco and Dell are building out their offerings that will also better enable 1-1 VDI. Hey there’s even VDI-in-a-box now…

I also have no doubt that as more service providers offer VDI solutions, they’ll be able to deliver greater economies of scale for VDI leveraging the emerging technology stack.

But the OpEx is still where the rubber meets the road regardless of your ability to really measure it. If you are not a 100 percent VDI shop, simply making your management model consistent across the physical desktop and VDI/SBC for internal and external users requires a lot of work. This helps you move towards a better-managed infrastructure. VDI adds, as it did for me, many new considerations about business logic that you need to consider. Also, let’s not forget in this 1-1 world, strategies like application virtualization, user personalization, etc., are all still relevant. They’re just not pre-requisites to solve the problems that really matter to your business, as many believe.

When you think about all these things as part of your broader infrastructure strategy, it begins to reveal additional perspectives. This is something that I’ll discuss in more detail in part two, as the smartest people I know are not getting pre-occupied with shared VDI any time soon. They know 1-1 VDI provides them plenty of opportunity to enable capability and drive efficiency as part of a broader data center strategy, while other desktop models, like regular PCs and SBC, solve for specific use cases.

@harrylabana

Is there a reason to move to Windows 8 in the enterprise? Maybe a few, but probably not enough...

Gabe Knuth — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 05:01:00 GMT

I've been all over the US this year speaking about desktop virtualization and the future of Windows, and part of that discussion is what, if anything, should people do with Windows 8. I maintain now, as I did before the launch, that Windows 8 should be placed on the back burner when it comes to priorities in the IT department, and that the primary focus today should still be on getting to Windows 7 across the board and compartmentalizing your users and applications as much as possible (all off which leads to better desktop management). That said, there are a few people that see Windows 8 as a strategic platform for niche use cases around their organizations, mostly some sort of mobile use case where Surface Pro tablets will offer some needed flexibility.

Still, what if you were 100% migrated to Windows 7, and what if you were 100% committed to Microsoft going forward? In that case, is there a reason today to shift to Windows 8 in the enterprise? Let's look at some of the aspects that should factor in to the decision. To be clear up front, this is not looking at WinRT, which is the version of Windows that runs on ARM-based machines and the current Surface tablet. WinRT-based machines are effectively unmanageable, at least by the same methods we use to manage our regular Windows desktops. They are essentially like any other mobile device, so managing them requires more of an MDM/MAM approach.

Licensing

Licensing belongs in the "low-hanging fruit" category of reasons to upgrade to Windows 8. With it's release, Microsoft has also somewhat simplified the licensing for the OS, especially in VDI environments. Essentially, you must have SA to do anything useful. You'll need SA on a primary computer before you purchase a Companion Device License, for instance, or Windows To Go. It's Microsoft's way of locking you in, and while it may be easier to decipher what's needed to license Windows in your environment, it's not exactly the kind of changes the community was looking for. For more information on this, check out Brian's post from April: Microsoft announces virtual desktop licensing changes for Windows 8. Guess what? They're still screwing us!

Nonetheless, with fewer editions of Windows and a clearly defined licensing model, there is sort of implied benefit of moving to Windows 8 as long as you have SA.

Traditional PCs

The elephant in the room when talking about replacing Windows 7 (or XP, for that matter) with Windows 8 is the interface changes, and you'd be hard pressed to find someone that completely adores all the changes. If you do, that person is probably a IT person or general geek that likes anything new. I like new things. I like the way Metro looks (although we've been calling it TileWorld for a while now because "Windows 8 Interface" is weird). I even kind of like the way the Surface tablet that we bought for testing feels. In no way does that mean that I want to use Windows 8 in the enterprise, though.

Paul Allen wrote a blog post (yeah, that Paul Allen) with his review of Windows 8, and even he found it frustrating that there are different version of applications in Metro TileWorld vs the desktop, and that those applications aren't aware of each other. His words are much more carefully chosen than mine, and probably do a better job of explaining the problem:

"I did encounter some puzzling aspects of Windows 8. The bimodal user experience can introduce confusion, especially when two versions of the same application – such as Internet Explorer – can be opened and run simultaneously. Files can also be opened in either of the two available modes. For example, after opening a PDF attachment in Outlook from the desktop, Windows opens the file in Microsoft Reader, an application more suited for use on a tablet, rather than the desktop Acrobat Reader. A manual switch is then required to return to desktop mode. Thankfully, you can alleviate these switching problems by changing file and program associations in Windows, as I'll explain later."

I would've said something like "…one other batshit-crazy thing I found was that when I opened up a PDF in the desktop it took me to a TileWorld app and I couldn't figure out how to get back to the app I was in without clicking or swiping a bunch of times. Seriously? I have to manually enter custom file type associations just to use my desktop the way I've been trained to do it for 20 years? What year is this?"

Thankfully, I'm not writing a review of Windows 8…oh.

Anyway, the UI differences are certainly there, and they remind me of when Office 2007 came out. Upgrading Office to a newer version is something organizations had done many times in the past, but Office 2007 was the version that released the "ribbon" UI. Organizations held on to Office 2003 for as long as they possibly could, and despite the fact that Office 2003 reached end of mainstream support in April of 2009, I'd imagine many still run it to this day. Sure, a large chunk of that is because an upgrade would cost a small fortune, but the UI changes also factor in.

Now, take those UI changes in Office, plus all the education and end-user consternation that went into upgrading from Office 2003 and apply that to an entire OS. Yikes.

Aside from all of that, though, the underlying OS is still Windows. In fact, it's been said that Windows 8 performs as good or better than Windows 7 in many areas, and Microsoft certainly hasn't taken away any management capabilities. System Center is being updated to support Windows 8 and TileWorld applications (.appx apps). Unlike WinRT-based device (the ARM version of Windows 8), it can still be joined to domains and managed just as you would have managed any other version of Windows. Frankly, if Windows 8 didn't have Metro TileWorld, it would feel like a Service Pack or maintenance release, and I'd be all for migrating to it.

Windows To Go

Windows to Go, or WTG, is one of the features unique to Windows 8 that's generating some interest, although I can't think of a place where I'd like to use it in my routine (or any of my past jobs either, actually). WTG gives you the ability to deploy a Windows 8 image to a USB stick that can then be booted up in just about any modern PC. If it has USB 3, you're more likely to have a good experience, but anything that can boot from USB will work.

The obvious benefit of this is that users can take their corporate-provisioned Windows desktop anywhere they go. Since a desktop booted to WTG doesn't have any exposure to the local storage on a computer, so there's no risk of cross-contamination. WTG can even be provisioned and managed by SCCM, which means we finally have a Microsoft-sanctioned, manageable way to boot Windows from a USB stick.

That said, where would you use it? I can't imagine people walking around with thumb drives plugging them into machines like bees searching for pollen. They'd get lost all the time, and I shudder to think about what would happen if any data was on the stick (which there most likely would be). The sticks can be encrypted with BitLocker, but since they're designed to be portable the device isn't tied to a specific TPM, which means that it's inherently less secure than using BitLocker on a traditional computer.

Perhaps the best use case I can come up with is for a user working from home. The user could take their corporate imaged thumb drive home with them and boot it up on their computer. The work image would be totally isolated from the personal OS and data, which alleviates the concerns that come with virtual machines running on Type 2 hypervisors or compromised PCs accessing remote desktops. To me, this is a pretty compelling scenario. There are others, like temporary workers or contractors, but they seem more like niche solutions.

RemoteFX

The changes in RemoteFX warrant their own article, which is something that Brian did way back in February of this year. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out: Look out Citrix HDX & VMware PCoIP: RDP and RemoteFX in Windows 8 is awesome!

There are so many changes to note, like multitouch support and USB support for RDSH, plus game-changing things like honest-to-goodness WAN support due to the addition of adaptive graphics, UDP support, and advanced media remoting that will optimize and redirect any video in a RemoteFX session, not just Windows Media and DirectShow content.

Perhaps the best overall feature of RemoteFX in Windows 8, though, is that it just works. In the past, you needed to have a GPU on a Hyper-V host to use RemoteFX for VDI desktops, while terminal servers were able to use RemoteFX's features via a virtual GPU. The vGPU capabilities have now been added to Windows 8, so now you have the ability to leverage RemoteFX in any virtual desktop situation. Sure, you can still offload graphics processing to a GPU, but the bottom line is that RemoteFX is there for everyone to use now.

Wrap-up

While there are some features of Windows 8 that are compelling, in the grand scheme of how we manage applications and data, deciding whether or not to use Windows 8 is going to be difficult. Do the new features outweigh the the challenge of the new UI? Sure, there are ways around the UI, but they're not officially sanctioned by Microsoft. Do we implement a work-around just to get at some of these features, deploy Windows 8 and educate the users on all the UI changes, or do we stick with what we have while we evaluate just what the next 3-5 years is going to do to the industry?

Many organizations are still struggling with how to deal with applications that they've deployed throughout their user base going forward. Many were burned by Vista and Windows 7 and have been forced to rewrite or replace them. In the past, the answer would have been to develop new apps in the Windows-based development platform-du jour, but with all the talk of a Post-PC era and the questionable decisions of Microsoft to have two application platforms in one OS make people leery of being burned again. That means that more and more companies are considering alternative platforms like browser-based, cloud-based, or mobile applications, and if you're not moving to Windows apps, why keep deploying Windows?

While others will surely protest this statement, I'm confident saying that Windows 8 will not be "Vista 2" in the Microsoft history books. The end result of "nobody's using it" might be the same, but I feel that the reasons for Windows 8's lack of adoption will be much different than those of Vista. Ripping out the Start Menu, changing the interface to Metro TileWorld, relegating the desktop to a second-tier interface, and creating two parallel-but-oh-so-different application execution environments is what will make or break Windows 8. The underlying OS, though, is reliable, optimized, secure, and manageable, which is more than we can say about Vista.

On the other hand, the industry is charging hard in a direction that Microsoft is only just now dipping their toes into. It might be too late, but Microsoft still has a lot of weight and money to throw around. On the other hand, the fate of Windows 8 is up to Microsoft because organizations faced with decisions about how to develop applications, manage applications, and manage data could always fall back on the fact that Windows pretty much just works the same way it always did. Organizations are moving to Windows 7 because they have to. The only way they'll move to Windows 8 is if they WANT to, and that will only happen after the evaluate all the other ways to develop and deliver applications and data. In the post-PC era, there are way more options than there used to be. Good luck with that, Microsoft.

Remember Wyse Project Stratus? It’s out. iPhone, Android, and thin client management all with one tool!

Jack Madden — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 19:00:00 GMT

Today Dell Wyse is releasing their Cloud Client Manager (formerly known as Project Stratus) It brings management for mobile devices, thin clients, and PocketCloud together into one package. Let’s take a look at all the pieces and why they’re a good fit.

The components

The mobile device management component, which supports iOS and Android, came from Wyse’s acquisition of Trellia about a year ago. This is pretty standard MDM, but of course the value of any particular MDM product is through what it does to scale and integrate the basic device management process. In this case, the value comes from integration with the overall Cloud Client Management platform. Dell Wyse also emphasised mobile app management capabilities, but it’s important to note that these are the capabilities that come with managing a device—such as blacklisting and whitelisting, installing corporate apps through provisioning profiles, or suggesting public apps—not the individual app level security features and hooks we associate with a lot of MAM products. For a closer look, check out this this video we shot back in May at Synergy when Project Stratus went into public beta.

Thin clients and zero clients can be managed with minimal user interaction—think remote employees getting thin clients sent to them and setting them up just by going to a self-service web portal. (Gabe and Jeff McNaught talk a bit about this at 6 minutes into this video from Synergy.)

The highly acclaimed Wyse PocketCloud can also come under the management of the Cloud Client Manager now. While it started out as a consumer app, IT can now plug in security and settings for accessing corporate desktops.

Putting all the pieces together

At first it glance it might seem like iPhones and thin clients have much in common—after all, nobody does BYO-thin client, right? But between mobile devices, PocketCloud, and thin clients, there are many different policies, management tasks, and settings that carry over from one type of endpoint to another. So why have a different backend for each one when a single product could take care of all of them? And considering that in a lot of companies the same admin could be managing all of these endpoints, putting everything together makes a lot of sense. On the other side, users can enroll mobile devices, their copies of PocketCloud, or thin clients all through a single web portal.

Active Directory integration is on its way but not included in this release. For right now Cloud Client Manager (did anyone else like the name “Stratus” better?) has all the expected options to build policies, set alerts, and run reports for the collective endpoints.

What’s next for Dell Wyse’s mobility plans? They wouldn’t give any specifics, but they did mention more more developments around app and content management for next year. That sounds like it could mean actual mobile app management products, more individual apps, or real file-syncing with varied back-end storage options. It’s not too much of a leap to see them going after more MAM—after all, it’s all just endpoints, whether they’re devices or apps.

Lakeside Software's SysTrack Transform (a video from VMworld 2012)

Gabe Knuth — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 20:36:00 GMT

Michael Schumacher gives a brief overview of Lakeside Software's SysTrack Transform from VMworld 2012. You can read more about it in the article titled: Lakeside Software keeps finding new (awesome) ways to leverage the data they collect

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Lakeside Software keeps finding new (awesome) ways to leverage the data they collect (with videos from VMworld)

Gabe Knuth — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 04:01:00 GMT

The Best of VMworld competition was a close one for us this year. For those that don't know, each year at VMworld, TechTarget hosts a rather extensive competition that aims to choose the best three technologies from various segments of virtualization, and both Brian and I were judges in the Desktop Virtualization segment this year (as we have been for the past three years). This year, our three finalists were Atlantis Computing's Diskless VDI (an article on that is forthcoming), HP's PoE thin client (which we covered during Synergy), and Lakeside Software's SysTrack Marketplace. What's interesting is that SysTrack Marketplace wasn't Lakeside's only entry into the awards, but it was the only one in the Desktop Virtualization segment. They had another technology that was equally, if not more impressive called SysTrack Transform.

SysTrack Transform

Currently, SysTrack Virtual Machine Planner collects data for a period of time in order to generate a point-in-time snapshot of what your desktop virtualization environment should look like. This includes things like virtualization host hardware configurations, storage, networking, applications, desktop images, and more, all at a very granular level. SysTrack Transform will take that a step further, using the same data to plan environments on a day-by-day basis. So now, instead of a one-shot report, Transform will watch the environment and make tweaks to what your virtualization environment should look like on a daily basis.

Transform monitors your user base via the existing Image Planning tool, watching what users are doing to decide which image they need, which applications they need, and how those applications are best delivered on an ongoing basis. It can determine, for instance, that a user needs a certain image, plus x-number of applications (installed, streamed, RDSH, etc…). It can also determine whether those one-off apps are ready to be delivered to users, like if an app hasn't been sequenced yet.

It also plugs into AppDNA, Microsoft App Compat DB, your own compatibility database to determine where applications should live (in the image, streamed, or otherwise). It can even use empirical data observed by SysTrack to determine compatibility, since the agent can see applications running or not running on an OS. All this adds up to a system that can determine not only what your virtualization environment should look like, but also whether or not certain users are ready to be migrated.

Also, it's included with SysTrack Virtual Machine Planner!

Keep in mind, this is planning only. You still have to do the work, but much of the thinking is done for you. Still, I can't help but imagine how cool it would be if this was an automated "VDI maintainer" that plugged in to all the systems that we use, moving images, applications, and users around as needed to maintain the most efficient environment! That's the power of all that data.

For more information, check out the video we shot with Michael Schumacher during VMworld:

SysTrack Marketplace

A runner-up in the Best of VMworld desktop virtualization category, SysTrack Marketplace finds another way to leverage the massive amount of data that SysTrack collects. All by itself, SysTrack can help plan your desktop virtualization project, but the suggestions it gave were generic (specific, but vendor agnostic). To make the results more helpful, Lakeside has set up partnerships the likes of VMware, Citrix, Cisco, EMC, and about a dozen more, that allows them to use vendor-specific algorithms to determine what exact products are needed based on the data gathered by SysTrack. When you use SysTrack Marketplace, you'll not only get the traditional SysTrack Desktop Virtualization Plan, but also custom, vendor-specific reports using the vendor's methodology based entirely on the exact same SysTrack data used for everything else SysTrack does.

Michael Schumacher gives a great explanation of it in this 5-minute video from the floor of VMworld 2012:

If you haven't figured out how to manage desktops in the past 20 years, what makes you think you'll magically get that with VDI?

Brian Madden — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:22:00 GMT

I've written quite a bit in the past that VDI is about not about making your desktops easier to manage—it's really nothing more than a form factor change that delivers some new capabilities. In our book The VDI Delusion, we talk about how the #1 reason that VDI projects fail is because companies try to do too much at once—and desktop management is a big part of that "too much."

For example, a lot of people buy off on the idea of VDI because it's "easier to manage." They hear about the disk image sharing or cloning or whatever, and they think, "Heck yeah! Managing one disk image is easier than managing hundreds!" And while I won't argue with that, I will point out that you can only actually manage one disk image if you can implement app virtualization, user state virtualization, and a whole host of other desktop environment delivery components. (Of course this is also assuming that all your apps are compatible with app virt, that no users want user-installed or departmental-installed unsupported apps, etc.)

I don't write this to scare off anyone who's thinking about VDI, rather, I just want to point out that if your current desktop environment is one where every user has his or her own unique disk image, and your plan for VDI is that you're going to move to a structured shared image model… you're in for big pain! In fact moving from the personal to shared disk is much harder than the actual VDI technologies.

With shared-image VDI (or any shared-image desktop virtualization), your users are starting off with a gold master image that you customize on demand with application & user virtualization. If that sounds appealing to you, then I have to ask: why aren't you doing this today? If your environment is ready for central image management, why haven't you been using Ghost and SMS and automated app installation for the past twenty years?

If your current desktop environment is physical PCs and laptops that each have their own images with locally-installed applications and you want to move to VDI with shared images—you need to stop right now and create two projects that are unrelated to each other.

One option is to forget VDI and focus on your Windows client management. Think about things like SCCM, Altiris, app virtualization, and user virtualization. Get those all built-out for your physical environment. Only once that's done and successful should you think about VDI.

Or, if you really need the benefits of VDI today, then forget the shared image thing for now. Just recreate your current 1-to-1 persistent image desktop model in your VDI environment. Once that's all up and running you can start to sprinkle in application or user virtualization.

Bottom line: I can't tell you how many people I hear who want to implement shared-image VDI. Then I ask them if they use something like Ghost to re-image their users' machines on a daily basis in their current environment. Usually they say, "no," which leads to me asking why. They say something about how unique their users are or how they have complex apps, and that leads to, "Well, if you haven't figured out how to do this with your physical desktops today, how do you magically think it's going to work in your VDI environment tomorrow?"