A Welcome Change

Managing a desktop fleet, or creating an optimal distribution of desktop
resources has always remained a challenge for the IT departments. The
conventional approach is to give standalone desktops to each user and either
manage the services individually or through a managed service provider. PC fleet
manage-ment in recent times is getting major attention due to the growing
complexities involved in managing it.

In a conventional desktop management approach, the management tasks are
multiple, and hence, they consume a whole lot of administrative time in managing
the desktops individually. The tasks that take most of the time are the ones
like installing and maintaining hardware and software, spam filtering, and
administering user permissions. Moreover, security-related tasks are also
increasingly becoming a large part of desktop management.

There are some software tools available to help manage the lifecycle of PCs,
but success with these software tools depends on both the technology and how
well IT organizations are equipped to use the technology. Given this backdrop,
the panacea lies in virtualization, which has now become the hottest technology
in the town. There are many vendors in the fray offering multiple solutions that
range from application virtualization to VDI. Today with virtualization, a whole
lot is changing in the realm of storage, servers and desktop manageability.
Virtualization is a macro concept and enterprises have to make the best use of
it and align it with their respective problem areas. If we look at things from a
desktop management perspective, the most used one right now is application
virtualization and in selective areas VDI is getting used.

New technologies

The essence of any virtualization is simplicity, manageability, higher
productivity. These key performance areas lead to higher RoI and lesser TCO. For
instance, an enterprise can create many virtual PCs using one desktop and
multiple users can access it with their own personalized settings. So, in a
typical application virtualization, the solution changes them into
network-available services, resulting in dynamic delivery of software to
multiple users. In this users and their application environments are no longer
machine-specific. Machines themselves are no longer user-specific. This enables
IT to be flexible and responsive to business needs, and significantly reduces
the cost of PC management.

With numerous vendors in the fray, each one is trying to create new
virtualization technologies to capture the market. One of the new entrants in
the virtualization space is LG Electronics. The company, with its new network
monitors, is pioneering a new type of virtualization. Here the virtualization is
embedded within the monitor; this new technology is developed by LG in
collaboration with NComputing.

According to company sources, the solution has two parts-the LG network
monitor and NComputing's X550 integration kits. Each integration kit supports
five additional users on a shared PC and with two kits, eleven users can share a
single PC. One can set this up in minutes. In the first instance, the user needs
to install the X550 PCI card into the shared PC and load the vSpace software.
Secondly, the user has to connect the LG Network Monitors to the PCI card. Users
connect their keyboards and mice directly to the LG Network Monitor, which in
turn delivers a full computing experience.

R Manikandan, Sr GM-Business Solutions, LG India said, "We are aggressively
targeting the education sector with the network monitors, and it offers lower
TCO by sharing a desktop with eleven users, thereby reducing the power
consumption and also reducing maintenance costs." Sources in LG revealed that
its network monitors work on the principle of desktop PC virtualization and it
has been developed to meet the demands for a low cost solution to the PC
replacement cycle. Interestingly, the LG network monitor can help redistribute
the mostly unused 90 percent of the PC resources to several users, and this,
according to LG, can reduce the TCO by 60 percent.

LG is aggressively pitching on education vertical to put this solution to
schools. LG has put in place a pricing model that works about Rs 15,000 for per
user. Since it's initially meant for the education vertical, the solution
providers tied up for this initiative will deliver education content to be used
in the network monitors. Another unique thing of a classroom using network
monitors is that the teacher will be interacting with every student through his
desktop.

"We have adopted NComputing technology in our product. Our value additions
are in integrating the technology in our monitor and improvising the same to
work better on a 10ft distance from the host PC. We have also worked on the
software development to support virtual IP for each user in a networked
environment, and also provided isolation software to give selective access to
software and application in a virtualised environment," added Manikandan.

Clearly, the network monitor is an innovative concept and can change the
dynamics of classroom teaching. By using it, teachers can give high degree of
personal attention to every student as they are connected with each student and
can monitor what they are doing. According to Manish Sharma, VP-Asia Pacific,
NComputing, "Desktop virtualization could be an emerging concept, but the drive
to cut down purchase and set up costs is real. When companies and users ask the
smart questions on why they need to buy ten computers, if all they need to buy
is one, the proposition becomes very compelling."

While LG and NComputing are pioneering a very innovative concept, other
players, like VMware, Citrix and the likes are also innovating a lot. VMware is
taking desktop virtualization to whole new levels. For instance, its latest
offering VMware View 4 is the industry's first purpose-built solution for
delivering desktops as a managed service. Using this solution, one can transform
desktop management into a simplified and automated process, reduce the total
cost of desktop ownership by 50 percent, provide end users a consistent high
performance desktop experience and bring the power of the data center and VMware
vSphere to one's desktop.

Citrix, meanwhile, has just announced its Xen Desktop 4 as part of its open
desktop virtualization program to drive virtual desktop deployments. This
solution gives customers the flexibility to run heterogeneous environments,
lowering costs, and maximizing their RoI. It also makes it easy for customers to
gradually add desktop virtualization capabilities at their own pace, simplifying
desktop computing, increasing security, and enhancing end user productivity.

Souma Das, Area VP, Citrix India said, "IT/ITeS companies in India are
turning to desktop virtualization to improve user flexibility, centralize
desktop management and lower overall IT costs. BFSI and BPO sectors are early
adopters of this technology as this has facilitated ITeS and BPO agents to work
from any PC in any office."

Other players in the fray, like Sun Microsystems, are also going aggressive
on the VDI space. For instance, Sun's VDI Software 3 is aimed at bringing more
agility in a VDI environment. Sun pitches its solution will usher in a new
dimension in creating a simplified management, higher flexibility and peak IT
utilization rates for desktop deployments. Moreover, its open architecture will
enable IT departments to design a virtual desktop environment using a broad
range of client device, virtualization hosts, and virtual desktop operating
systems.

The Sun Ray software removes management of complex PC or embedded OS thin
clients from the desktop equation by offering a complete virtual desktop. The
architecture consists of Sun Ray thin clients or Sun desktop access client
enabled PCs and Sun Ray software. The environment friendly thin client is a
low-cost device that, when plugged into the network, delivers a secure, network
desktop.

Going forward

Looking at the way things are evolving on the desktop virtualization space,
it's increasingly becoming mainstream. Virtualization is well entrenched on the
server side and gaining ground on the desktop side. The recent key developments,
like LG's network monitors and other solutions rolled by players like VMware and
Citrix augurs well for further escalation of desktop virtualization. This makes
even emerging concepts like VDI to accelerate ahead. According to a Gartner
report, is says that by 2013 VDI revenues are expected to climb to $65.7 billion
with 49 million users. Industry experts aver that newer and cost-effective
technolo-gies will create a compelling value proposition to enterprises to adopt
desktop virtualization in a big way in the days ahead.

Shrikanth G

(Source: DQ)