Nuts and Bolts: Desktops and the AXE effect

MUMBAI, INDIA: Saving space, Yes. Accommodating too much provisioning, No. Wonders with productivity and efficiency, Yes. Wondering how to rein in duplication and sprawl of virtual machines, No. Finding answers to expensive hardware, Yes. Questioning hidden costs and the price of complexity, No. Cross-platform flexibility, Yes. Personalisation rigidity, No. Sharper centralization and security, Yes. Blunted storage, No. Better uptime, Yes. Booting and network strain downtime, No.

Shall I jump before I miss desktop virtualization wave, Yes. Will I slip on the ice skating floor, Dunno. Most IT folks face these unending levels of dilemma ceilings before they can glide through the virtues of virtualization.

Taking one step at a time then instead of getting floored or overwhelmed is something simple yet rare. Like what we have picked from childhood stories of the woodcutter who won a contest just because he took time to sharpen his axe.

Incidentally, this CIO too spent some effort, wisdom and time on a POC for three months, before undergoing a massive virtualisation cut-over.

Fullerton India recently rolled out Citrix XenDesktop deployment and while the first phase covering 700 desktops is heard to be well underway, the second phase which will replace 1500 additional desktops, is slated for March 2014.

Talking to him about this milestone, reveals that he is not the kind to redact but someone who discerps all ugly apprehensions with candour and clarity. He neither shrugged nor panicked when it came down to the real issues that face IT departments when a much-promised and anticipated dream acquires probabilities to turn into a nightmare. He was not only ready to face them, but he prepped well before service time and anticipated every possible spoiler without sounding cynical.

He may not only have chiseled the axe well on time but looks like he also spent sweat on the many rough edges that usually make many hold back.

Anoop Handa, CIO, Fullerton India seems to prefer a well-devised totem for all the reality-check and not just some frivolous pinch-me-am-I-dreaming-call when it is about inception on a big transition.

Here he gives us a quick glimpse of that trick as he dives deep into the many concerns (a.k.a fears) around virtualization as well as the very relevance of that thing we all knew as ‘desktop'. Make the cut.

Tell us what really pushed the company towards a virtualized mode?

As you may know that Fullerton India Credit Company Limited, is a Non-Banking Finance Company (NBFC) with 370 branches across tier 1, 2 and other cities and has grown fast and well since 2007. Throughout this journey of progress, we had come upon to some outdated PCs with mounting repair and maintenance costs. So we were on a move about replacement of these PCs and seeing the trends in the industry we were open to viable options around Cloud, BYOD also. Therefore, we thought, why not combine refresh cycles with virtualization and that's when we started moving on to thin clients and VDI options.

 

How did you do the Maths about what will cost more if you took the leap?

The process started with evaluation and understanding of technology and once the nod from leadership happened, we started working out all aspects of costs, specially the hidden ones. So we took into account everything - PC costs, licensing, maintenance, support costs and not just PC-to-PC (IT) comparisons. This entailed all kinds of numbers like time factors, log-in time windows, productivity parts etc. Finally, we were able to give a strong business case to the management. It has now given us improved productivity and efficiency of employees, while improving the maintenance and manageability of IT infrastructure.

Was the switch-over as easy or as you planned?

Well, it was not just an IT move but a business transformation of sorts when you think of asking users to change their ways of using their systems and open up for responsibility-based quotas etc. We are talking cultural change here. Gaining participation from business folks was a big help in this journey. What also worked massively was the idea of testing waters well before the jump. POC was a critical part and we did it in a detailed way covering all possible varieties of applications, platforms, scenarios, devices from bio-metric key-ins to OpenOffice, thin clients et al. Extensive testing before the actual roll-out changed the challenge altogether.

Virtualised Desktops as you rightly mention may be interpreted differently by people at the desks. How does anyone tackle that while possibilities of boot-storms or personalization rip-offs surround such transitions?

Getting a user to change the ways s/he operates, stores all documents in, and works a system is not easy. Thinking of users in terms o their roles and needs was a hurdle to cross too. Any new thing takes time to settle and we were happy to see a good user response in a two-day cooling off. Specially when speed or log-in times are fast, it helps. This change also makes it easier to allow people to work from any location. Now, coming to personalization issue, explaining well and taking the business/management side along is very important. Buy-in from a wider team is key to success and when you tackle teething issues during pilots, or extrapolate costing properly or define a comprehensive business case; you have done a good foundation work.

Were sprawls tough factors to confront?

Again, planning and a tough POC is the answer. Frankly, it is a discovery phase because dangerous levels can't be entirely discounted unless planning is taken very good care of. If you do that, roll-outs become simple.

A server virtualization had already happened for Fullerton India in 2009, so were there any parallels that you picked or compared upon, when you juxtapose that with desktop virtualisaton?

Server side initiative was more towards data-centre and a back-end activity, where users are impacted only during conversion points or migration. This one, in comparison had a lot more front-end touch-points.

 

Were you worried about network strain?

That's a concern for any business anyways, specially for an organization with many locations and branches. My assumption is that most companies have that factor at the top-of-their-list and deal with it any circumstance.

How about the added complexity-and-storage burden that is usually perceived a tag-along with virtualisation?

I would rather highlight that security is very important and that's a great gain when controls are centralized with virtual set-ups. It makes things easier to manage. That also makes the environment robust and strong. Virtualisation, as my experience tells, has so many gains that are not as much talked of. Like savings on power which usually goes unaccounted. That can be a big business case when put against traditional CPU environment. Now roll-out of new branches will become smooth and incredibly quick with VDI. Employing a new guy at a far-off branch is easy with a thin client and centralized back-end. It also helps in workspace savings.

Will this set-up now catapult something else on your vision next?

Yes, very much. It would be a spring-board for BYOD plans as it would now be tremendously easy to replace or transfer a thin client.

Virtualised desktops, hybrid desktops and may be soon we will see 3D desktops around. Have we really, officially, entered a post-PC era?

Even desktops can be a D in BYOD. A PC can be as much of a front-end terminal while IT controls the back-end and when the wipe-out is easy for security. I would say that the question of obsolescence of PCs depends on the industry we are talking about. If you need a lot of heavy-date at the front-end, like in printing, then PCs with their roles will stay. But if it's more about a multi-branched company with too many locations, then VDI would be a good option.