Desktop virtualisation: A new PC every day

08-08-2008

by Ralph Averbuch

Globalisation, coupled with an impatient, mobile and tech-savvy workforce who can work anywhere, has driven a significant shift in working culture.

This change in working pattern means businesses are under ever greater pressure to become more efficient. As the economic downturn continues, the question on every executive’s lips is, “how is it possible to reduce IT costs, while achieving a flexible and responsive IT infrastructure that empowers workers to log on anywhere, anytime?� To address these issues businesses must invest in technology to meet and then manage demand for cost-effective flexibility.

Enterprises are already implementing server virtualisation technologies, designed to free server and database workloads from fixed ties to server hardware and enable consolidation, lower total cost of ownership and flexibility. Now, similar benefits are being extended to desktops, centralising previously distributed endpoint PCs into the data centre.

The traditional PC desktop is one familiar to most workers and executives. Every PC in an organisation could almost be described as a silo and is time-intensive for the IT team as they provide and maintain each device.

Understandably, companies are quickly becoming tired of high maintenance costs, as well as the continuing security threats. Traditional desktop deployments are costly to manage, support and secure on distributed endpoints. Desktop IT operations must repeat numerous, manual tasks to keep up with the latest patches, updates and upgrades to maintain desktop performance.

Desktop virtualisation is one way to tackle these inherent issues, however Citrix believes that there is more to this concept. As such, the next generation of the technology, desktop delivery, can give workers a “new� PC everyday, regardless of whether they are in the office, hotdesking or working remotely. After all, there is no lack of evidence for the pain of provisioning, maintaining, and using traditional PC desktops.

Desktop delivery, part of the wider Citrix Delivery Centre infrastructure, makes it possible for workers to feel as though they have a new personalised PC every day. It will not falter and deteriorate over time as it becomes cluttered with updates and new software installations. The latest virtual desktop and application updates will be automatically delivered from a central “master� operating system that is then streamed to each virtual PC across the organisation. Keeping virtualised desktops and applications separate is key.

Anyone considering upgrading PCs or buying desktops for new employees needs to look at the desktop delivery before committing to years of ongoing costs and a drag on productivity. As Gartner points out, "in the long run, as in the next five years, virtualisation will become extremely important because it addresses three major points of pain in IT organisations… it allows IT to deploy new operating systems and applications faster - and move them around from one server to another. This facilitates greater agility.�

Ultimately, separating the desktop from applications eliminates application conflicts and optimises system performance by keeping applications and desktops in a “pristine state.� This separation results in a flexible architecture that can deliver the entire desktop – OS, applications, and data – to any user in any location at the lowest cost.

Desktop virtualisation is only part of the wider application delivery picture, but that doesn’t make it any less important. Technology and business are now dependent on each other and desktop delivery is one such way to take desktop virtualisation to the next level. The ability to reduce IT support costs associated with desktop maintenance and support by 40 percent has to be considered as demands for improved productivity and efficiency mounts. Delivering an experience from one central data centre to a multitude of PCs, regardless of location, that looks no different from a regular desktop interface, whilst being faster and more cost effective, is a strong incentive indeed. The appeal of a “new� PC everyday is almost irresistible.

You can find out more about the Citrix Delivery Center by attending the Citrix Virtualisation Solutions Seminar at Clontarf Castle, Dublin on 16 October. Book your complimentary place.