Virtual Desktops: Why Now? Cost Savings, That's Why

Now is the time for virtual desktops.  There are a lot of people in the industry saying that you should wait. Nonsense.  There are serious savings in support and energy costs to be garnered, along with other significant, factors that will increase agility and lower TCO.  Don't wait.  If you're careful, plan accordingly and not try to fit a round peg into a square hole, you will be successful.

Virtual desktops are the next hottest virtualization project for 2009.  There are a handful of companies doing virtual desktops in one way or another, but it seems that these "early adopters" aren't sharing what has worked and what didn't.  I know that the projects couldn't have been that easy, nothing is anymore.  So what did they do that made them successful and how can others learn for them? 

I conducted a very non-scientific survey of the people that I have on my Twitter account.  I asked them why they thought VDI projects fail.  The main reasons I got back were, "lack of understanding what the user needs to do their job effectively." I can certainly understand that. 

The other reason, believe it or not was, "trying to push a square solution into a round hole."  I'm paraphrasing here, but you get my point.  Basically, trying to make the virtual desktop solution fit every user case.  And the last one, "lack of business case development and marketing."  That one I can certainly see.

So let's ask the question "Why implement virtual desktops?" I'll give you two very good reasons here:

• Client System Manageability:  We all know that managing a wide variety of client form factors, multiple generations of operating systems and hundreds of applications is a costly and resource-intensive undertaking.  I've even seen some very well-managed PC environments require constant maintenance and support to repair problems and keep systems compliant with corporate policy.  Virtualization of the desktop will allow large, globally distributed companies with thousands of PCs to maintain software on the desktop systems more cost-effectively by reducing their dependence on specific hardware and operating system configurations.
• Security:  we are painfully aware of the traditional PC environment and it's constant need for security updates and patches, mitigating viruses and worms, and the exposure of critical data and applications to malicious behavior from internal and external sources. The movement to a more mobile workforce with laptops, etc, the security risks increase.  Your users access the Internet through public and unsecured home Wi-Fi networks and - we have seen this play out over and over in the press - thousands of laptops are stolen every year, putting your confidential data at risk.  Managing access to sensitive applications and data is made easier with virtualization.  With virtualization technologies you can decouple applications from data, thereby making it easier to deprovision access to applications.

Virtualization has its limits, but the additional benefits are a driving factor and the technology is rapidly catching up with the user scenarios playing out today.  My top four reasons to do virtual desktops now are:

1. Reduction of desktop support costs.  The provisioning of PCs is much simpler in a virtualized environment.  In our traditional desktop environments, administrators must test applications against multiple desktop configurations.  With virtual desktops, IT can test applications against only one environment prior to deployment and still eliminate most follow-up support issues.
2. Application and data security improvements.  I mentioned this above, but it bears repeating.  Because virtualized environments give us in IT greater control over system and application provisioning and access, it is easier to secure access rights, and in many cases, data.
3. Software licensing management.  How many applications are running in your environment now that you have no way of tracking?  Exactly.  If you deliver all corporate applications through a virtualized environment, it is easier to track software usage and licenses. 
4. System stability and reliability.  Virtual environments can help prevent app conflicts.  In addition to that, they are easier to repair when there are problems.  There are ways to "sandbox" applications and prevent these conflicts like application streaming from Citrix, App-V from Microsoft and ThinApp from VMware.  Plus, we can quickly and easily restore a PC to a working state with a simple reboot, thereby redcucing the costs associated with reimaging and redeploying that hardware asset.

In today's perilous economic times IT budgets are being slashed.  CIOs are having a tough time with changes happening continuously, more of the shrinking budget is going to maintenance and integration tasks, with little left over for innovation. But it's not time to retrench.  Retrenchment will surely buy you time, but it will not buy you opportunity, growth or a future. Now is the time for virtual desktops.  With some solid planning around the business case and understanding the business and use cases you can make sure that your virtual desktop initiative is successful.