The benifits of virtual infrastructure

NEW DELHI, INDIA: VDI or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure has become one of the most popular hosted desktop technologies today. Gartner for instance has predicted that there will be 49 million virtual desktops by 2013 globally, up from 500,000 in 2009. Other research agencies are also predicting big things for the technology that places your desktop in the data center as a hosted virtual machine. So does this mean you should halt your PC purchase and switchover to VDI? It might sound like that, but that's not really the case because all PCs are not necessarily candidates for VDI. It depends upon the type and size of your organization, and even the state of your existing IT infrastructure.

As VDI requires certain additions and modifications to an IT infrastructure, it might be avoidable if the cost of doing that is too high. Likewise, if your organization's employee base is largely made up of graphics and multimedia professionals, then again, they might be better off with physical, high-end PCs.

On the contrary, VDI can be great if you have a lot of standard desktop PCs for doing regular productivity work. Managing a large fleet of such desktops is a nightmare, as most of you would already know. VDI could also be a good option if you're expecting to incorporate mobile devices like smartphones and tablets in your workforce in the future.

So like we said, you really have to understand what VDI is and what it can do for you before taking the plunge. Whatever the case may be, it's unlikely that VDI would replace your entire fleet of desktops, at least not in one shot.

Benefits of a Hosted Desktop Environment

To understand and appreciate the business benefits of a hosted desktop infrastructure like VDI, it's important to revisit the challenges involved in managing a fleet of physical desktops. These are not new-patches and updates, data security, switching off machines that are left on by employees after office hours, are just a few. Add to that the cost of AMC, OS/application upgrades, power consumption, etc, and you'll realize that you're paying much more for managing each PC than its original purchase price. So, say your desktop cost you around Rs. 20,000, you'll end up spending much more than that over the PC's usable life.

We interacted with Vilas Pujari, GM-IT at ACG Worldwide, the second largest manufacturer of empty hard capsules in the world, and a fifty years old company. The company is planning to implement VDI, but in a slightly different way. Vilas intends to first implement shared app hosting and thin clients, and then move to VDI. Vilas told us how he he has stopped buying desktops, and his plans to go about implementing VDI.

1. What were some of the reasons that you stopped buying desktops?

Because I see only thin clients, laptops, and smart devices being used as end points in the future, and 2-3 years hence, a lot of computing will happen on the cloud. I do not see any use of desktops other than for specialized apps like heavy graphic designing, CAD/CAM software or desktops attached to instruments. It is better to stop ahead of time. I am upgrading my design users' desktops and managing immediate requirements of some desktops.

2. Typically, we've seen organizations move directly to VDI. But in your case, is there a distinct advantage of taking this interim step of first implementing shared app hosting with thin clients before moving to VDI?

I believe applications are the most important step while moving to VDI. Moreover, not all desktops/ laptops need to move to VDI. Only 30% of users would really need to use the full power of desktop features and will move to VDI. Rest can be managed using shared app hosting. Microsoft current licensing is not favoring VDI implementation. Further, cost of bandwidth is prohibitive for a full scale VDI implementation.

With a hosted desktop infrastructure, many of these challenges are alleviated. Since it puts all desktops in a central location in the data center, they can be managed from a single management interface. No need to hop around from machine to machine powering them off when they're not in use, or updating them with the latest patches and updates, etc. These can be handled from one location and by fewer people, resulting in both manpower and power saving. It also alleviates a lot of issues related to desktop management, like data security, patch management, disaster recovery, etc. Moreover, VDI allows you to provide access to a desktop from any device, and not just a PC. It could be a thin client, smartphone, tablet PC, or even a web browser.

To VDI or not to VDI ?

Despite all the benefits, choosing deciding between a VDI solution or traditional PC purchase isn't all that simple. That's because there's a comfort level associated with buying new PCs. You're used to it, but with VDI, you have to evaluate the costs associated with each option before taking the dive. You have to first understand which desktop PCs are the candidates for moving into the desktop as virtual machines, and which ones aren't. You then have to analyze whether your IT infrastructure is geared up to handle VDI, and then zero in on the right VDI solution based on the level of functionality you need, and finally, you have to analyze the costs associated with all of this.

Which PCs are candidates for VDI?

Typically, the regular fleet of desktops used for regular productivity work like office apps, email, web browsing are the first candidates for moving to VDI. That's because you can create one virtual machine image of a traditional desktop, and then keep replicating that for all the desktops you need. This would reduce the time required by your IT department to issue or take back desktops when users join/leave the organization. Desktop PCs being used for highly specialized work, like graphics workstations, multimedia development, etc. may not be good candidates for VDI because you may not get the desired level of performance from them in a VDI environment.

Is My IT Infrastructure Geared up for VDI?

For this, you have to understand what all is required to implement VDI. You need powerful servers that can handle multiple virtual machines, where each virtual machine should have a configuration equivalent of an ordinary desktop PC. In other words, you need a server with plenty of RAM, and lots of CPU cores. Next, you have to check your storage. As each virtual machine represents a complete desktop PC, it requires a considerable amount of storage space. So a decent, centralized storage like an iSCSI based SAN would be ideal. If you plan to provide access to mobile clients like smartphones, tablets, etc, then you have to optimize your WAN and WiFi links as well.

Comparing Costs

This is directly associated with how ready is your IT infrastructure to handle VDI. A few things you'll have to evaluate are as follows:

Servers: Are your existing servers geared to handle the load of so many virtual machines, or would you have to replace them with new, more powerful ones? If new, then what would be the configuration that would handle so many desktops? How much would that cost?

Networking infrastructure: If you intend to provide access to VDI over WiFi or a web browser, then it would require WAN bandwidth upgrades and optimization. On the LAN also, you'll need to optimize the bandwidth to reduce latency. While running a virtual desktop even over the LAN in our tests, we found a distinct lag in the response, indicating that there was latency on the network.

Cost of software: It might sound easy, but even the VDI software itself has many components in it, which varies across different vendors. Even the pricing structure would vary depending upon the features and components you choose. We've given a detailed comparison of the three popular VDI solutions from VMware, Microsoft, and Citrix. Refer to that if you want to understand this in more detail.

Cost of clients: While on one side you're deferring your desktop PC purchase, you'll still need something at the front-end to access the VDI machines. So the cost for that has to be factored in. It could be a thin client, or a mobile device, or even your existing desktop. Whatever the case, you'll need to factor in the cost for the same.

Security: Just because you've moved physical desktops into a virtual domain, it doesn't mean your security woes can be put to rest. There are security issues with virtualization as well, which have to be focused upon.

Storage: If you don't already have a SAN, then you'll need one to place all your VMs. Moreover, you also have to worry about backing up all those VMs.

As you can well imagine, moving to VDI has its benefits, but the cost for doing the same has to be carefully analyzed and weighed. A lot of companies around the globe are doing it in phases, moving their desktops to the virtual space in phases.