VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) management involves the complete lifecycle management and delivery of a desktop environment to the end user, regardless of where the desktop and applications reside. Consolidating the delivery of applications and deployment of desktops in this manner offers the following benefits:

Reduce the cost and complexity of managing Windows desktops
Enable Dynamic IT with rapid provisioning and deployment of desktops and applications
Provide a business continuity and disaster recovery framework for desktop and application availability
Embrace Green IT by consolidating computer resources for desktops and applications (Thin clients use 50% less power than full function PC)

Desktop Challenges
The traditional PC as the corporate full-featured “thick client” has been the workhorse of desktop computing. For most organizations, it has offered the best available compromise between price on one hand and performance and capabilities on the other. However, for many organizations, full-featured PCs on the physical desktop are less than ideal.

Current desktop challenges:

Desktop Management: Centralizing desktop management is an extremely difficult task in the face of a broadly distributed computing environment and the corporate workforce, which increasingly requires secure on-demand access to their desktop environment from anywhere. Furthermore, desktops are notoriously difficult to standardize because of the variety of PC hardware and users’ needs to modify desktop environments.
Total Cost of Ownership: The relatively low cost of PC hardware is often more than offset by the high cost of PC management and support. Ongoing PC management including deployment of software, updates and patches can be labor-intensive and time consuming because of the need to test and validate deployments for a wide variety of PC configurations. Likewise, the lack of standardization and the need for support personnel to troubleshoot issues in person and on-site raise support costs dramatically.
Data Security: Ensuring that data on PCs is successfully backed up and can be restored when PCs fail or files are lost is a significant challenge. Even when data is successfully backed up, the risk of PC theft threatens the security of important data.
Low Resource Utilization: The distributed nature of PCs makes it difficult to pool resources to improve utilization and reduce costs. As a result, PCs are often less than five percent utilized, remote offices require duplicate desktop infrastructures and remote desktop solutions may be required for mobile workers.

VDI Benefits
Because of these challenges, organizations worldwide have evaluated and implemented alternatives to thick clients, such as deploying thin clients with Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. This emerging trend is the ability to host desktop images on server systems to enable them to centralize resources, improve desktop management, while providing a secure access and application delivery mechanism. With Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), the entire desktop environment, including operating systems, applications and configurations, reside on virtual servers such as VMware ESX, Virtual Iron, or Microsoft Virtual Server.

Benefits of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure include:

Centralized Management: Corporate desktops adhering to the organization standards are “always-on” and easily managed from a central location.
Total Access: Consistent and reliable access to full desktops or hosted applications is securely achieved and maintained through a centrally-managed “always-on” infrastructure.
Resource Optimization: Eliminate the proliferation of high-powered, less-used PCs by hosting desktops in Virtual Machines (VM) on shared servers and dynamically manage resources across VMs.
Environment Isolation: User environments are each contained in their own VM, eliminating any issues with applications that are not multi-user aware, while ensuring strict security.
Service Orientation: Deliver the highest service levels and SLAs to users with instant provisioning, recovery and issue resolution, while maintaining a personalized experience.
Green IT Desktop: VDI solutions implemented with thin client desktops reduce energy usage by over 50% at the desktop (vs. full function personal computers).

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

The Istonish Distinction

Before we propose any product or service, we educate you on how virtualization can benefit your organization and what the virtualization landscape looks like today. We discuss both the business and environmental benefits. Since we represent products from several virtualization software and hardware vendors, we bring a unique perspective and create the right solution for you.

Learn more about Istonish’s 5 Stages of Green IT Implementation and Management which include assessment, design, deploy, manage and recycle.