Sarah Friar of Goldman Sachs sent me some reports on VDI market developments. The report called desktop virtualization update (June 8 2010) has some good insights on the market developing.
One exhibition that got me thinking was the one (exhibition 6) about the major hurdles that prevent VDI from being adopted by the early majority. Seems to me that most of these hurdles could or should be addressed by User Workspace Management solutions:
Hurdle 1. Expense of Microsoft Licensing policy
This one is already being addressed by Microsoft itself starting July 1th. Their new pricing seems fair. Judge for yourself and visit their website for an explanation.
Hurdle 2. TCO story is still in question
Most important reason the VDI TCO is still in question actually had to do with VDI pricing (Microsoft pricing that is). Microsoft confesses in a whitepaper about VDI TCO:
“While VDI has higher TCO than PCs for office workers, it can deliver superior value in other use cases.”
This is becoming less of an issue because VDI pricing is addressed by Microsoft. Most of the best practices mentioned in the same whitepaper, that help reduce TCO in VDI and PC environments, are best practices that are available with User Workspace Management: pooled images, application virtualization, patch management, standardized images, lockdown, no admin rights etc etc.
Hurdle 3 User experience concerns (multi media, printing, etc.)
Most User experience concerns are server based computing related and are well known to IT administrators familiar with TS and/or Citrix implementations. Most User Workspace Management solutions find their roots in these types of environments and have addressed User Experience Concerns since the beginning.
Hurdle 4. Management software for virtual desktop environments is not mature yet
A Virtual desktop environment has desktops and needs tooling that manages these desktops. Even if they are virtual, desktops still need to be managed. Any tooling that is able to manage a desktop will be able to manage a virtual desktop. User Workspace Management solutions go one step further and also manage the “virtual” part of the desktop.
Hurdle 5. High upfront data center build out costs for servers, storage and networking
Not one of the biggest hurdles according to the exhibition but still an argument that prevent CIO’s from starting a VDI project. Hardware to support VDI infrastructures is getting cheaper by the day and best practices that help to implement VDI without to much upfront investments are spreading the internet. This hurdle will not last long.
Hurdle 6. Traditional desktop model is good enough
I can’t argue with this one. If the traditional model was good enough yesterday why shouldn’t it be good enough today. VDI is definitely something to consider for every company but the usecase determines if an implementation makes sense. This will in lots of cases result in mixed environments with desktops that are partly virtualized, partly fat clients, partly TSCitrix and some laptops. User Workspace Management solutions will guarantee that these mixes of desktops remain manageable and the user experience remains consistent.
Conclusion
User Workspace Management solutions play a very important role in removing the hurdles that prevent CIO’s from starting VDI projects. Migrating to VDI environments and managing these environments needs User Workspace Management.
