The entire architecture around the modern endpoint has changed. This is truly become evident within the healthcare field. Associates, doctors and administrators are all processing healthcare information in completely new ways. IT consumerization and mobility have certainly played a big part through all of this. The evolution of the healthcare environment, however, is never truly complete unless we take a look at security considerations. How has the endpoint evolved to simplify security? How are we […]
virtual desktop
There’s evidence in the channel that organizations are growing increasingly gun-shy about following through on desktop virtualization pilots and deployments. Their uneasiness, according to virtualization experts, stems from higher than expected infrastructure costs, technical complexity and a return on investment that’s typically slower to materialize compared to server virtualization. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Desktop virtualization goes hand-in-hand with mobility, and the arrival of Windows 7 and Apple’s iPad were expected to be […]
Virtualization has been a boon for multiuser systems, letting them run the Windows operating system and applications on servers. Each user’s state is saved as a virtual desktop that can be remotely accessed from PCs, laptops, netbooks, tablets, smartphones and even dumb “thin clients” (terminals costing as little as $200). The downside is that remote users of server-hosted virtualization need to be online to take advantage of the virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)—a show-stopper for highly […]
Talk to vendors and they will tell you that desktop virtualization is heading for an inflection point. Clearly, in the IT/ITES segment, this technology makes a lot of sense. Other industry verticals, BFSI in particular, also stand to benefit. However, it must be noted that desktop virtualization isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. It needs a large number of users who are deskbound at work. While you can deploy the technology on a laptop and solutions […]
The move to almost fully virtualized computing environments is driving a fresh approach to security [1] in the enterprise, according to information technology security managers applying controls for VMware and Microsoft [2] Hyper-V. “We’re very close to being 100 percent virtualized,” says Gurusimran Khalsa, systems group supervisor in the state of New Mexico’s human services department. That organization’s servers are based on VMware’s vSphere, and a virtual desktop project is being started, too. The agency’s […]
I think a lot of people confuse these two virtualization technologies and maybe you’re one of them. The distinction is not apparent from the names given to them but rather in the scale of the technologies behind them. Desktop virtualization means that you run a virtual machine on your desktop computer. Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is a data center technology that supplies hosted desktop images to remote users. There is, as you can see, a […]
VDI can simplify the tasks that make desktop administrators hate their lives — the one-by-one operating system upgrades, Windows patch management, client hardware failures and end-user mishaps. But virtual desktops won’t solve any problems without proper planning and infrastructure. In fact, many virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) proofs of concept fail because of infrastructure, said Tom Scanlon, CIO of the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (MCPHS). When MCPHS explored a move from physical desktops […]
The desktop computer remains a fixture in just about every business – a fixture that still needs to be maintained, secured and eventually, refreshed. At the same time, the pressures to provide more flexible, cost-effective access to corporate systems is leading organisations to look at mobile and cloud computing desktop alternatives. So why are we still talking about desktops? Simply swapping old desktop hardware for new without looking at the latest technology options may miss […]
One of the challenges of evaluating cloud computing and the use of hosted desktops in the small business enterprise is understanding not only the business case ROI, but the operational impact. Here are 30 questions to assist you in thinking through the issues associated with deploying hosted desktops. First some definitions: VDI, Virtual Desktop infrastructure = Dedicated Virtual Desktop (hosted desktop) There are two kinds of VDI: server-hosted and client-side. A Server-Hosted Virtual Desktop Infrastructure […]
The desktop virtualization market was chugging along at a decent albeit unspectacular pace before Apple’s iPad arrived and helped crystallize the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) concept. Since then, the iPad has become the main onramp for companies looking to mobilize their work forces through the use of virtualization. Executives were the first to bring the iPad into the workplace, but before long all types of employees were clamoring for the ability to access corporate […]
VMware is telling customers that two Windows 7 security patches have left the VMware View desktop virtualization client unable to access the View Connection Server, which brokers the connection between a user’s computer and a virtual desktop. This led Gartner virtualization analyst Chris Wolf to write a blog post titled “Windows 7 Update Breaks VMware View Client” that says this week’s event is “an important lesson in BYOD” deployments that let workers bring their own […]
The dominant desktop paradigm will finally wither and a thousand new personal computing models will bloom. Everyone knows the Windows desktop monolith is breaking into pieces. Yes, Microsoft is still making money, mainly from the big rollover to Windows 7 — but where does Redmond go from here? And which alternatives are truly viable? This is the year when we’ll start to find out. New, overlapping client computing paradigms are popping up all over the […]
With Thanksgiving and Christmas behind us and the New Year upon us, it is time to take stock and see what changed for desktop virtualization in 2010. One thing is very clear: We have moved from desktop virtualization being ‘about to take off’ to ‘has taken off’ — the evidence for this is pretty clear in the number of licenses sold. With volumes sold in the low millions, desktop virtualization is way beyond the tryout […]
This article is based on the book “Creating the Infrastructure for Cloud Computing: An Essential Handbook for IT Professionals” The virtualization models for clients are, arguably, more diverse than those for servers. For servers there are essentially two, the earlier model of static consolidation and the more recent dynamic model where virtual machines lightly bound to physical hosts can be moved around with relative ease. With virtualized clients there are also two main models, depending […]