Seven benefits of virtual desktop infrastructure
By Steven Warren, Special to ZDNet Asia
Thursday, March 05, 2009 12:18 PM
Thursday, March 05, 2009 12:18 PM
With the ever increasing prices of upgrading desktop computers, virtualization of the desktop is becoming very appealing.
For IT administrators with a lot to deal with in today’s corporate infrastructure, here are some of the benefits of virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI):
- Management: In a typical corporate infrastructure, you manage desktops using remote software technology such as Altiris or some other push technology. It is really hard to manage hundreds of desktops as you are well aware if you administer desktops in your corporate infrastructure.
Using technology such as VDI allows you to have central management of all your desktops and really control what is being installed and used on the desktops. Deployment of virtual desktops is lightning fast as opposed to using imaging technology such as Norton or other antiquated technologies. Would you like to manage 500 desktops all over the United States or Europe or manage them from one data center? - Security: Security is a key factor in rolling out VDI. With VDI, you have greater control of how you secure your desktop. You can lock down the image from external devices or prevent copying data from the image to your local machine; I'm a big fan of this feature of VDI. Remote users or road warriors also benefit as sensitive data is stored on the server in the data center and not the device. If the device is stolen, the information is protected.
- OS migrations: Let's say you want to roll out Windows Vista to a select few managers. Prior to VDI, you would have to look at their equipment and most likely upgrade hardware, memory, disk space, etc. With VDI, you can just push out a Windows Vista image from a central location to the group of managers.
- VDI image: You can create a library of VDI images to meet all of your company needs. If your company is seasonal, you can have extra images to handle the increased employee traffic. If you use third-party vendors/contractors/consultants, you can use secure/encrypted locked down images to allow them to work in your environment.
- Snapshot technology: With VDI, you have the ability to roll back desktops to different states. This is a great feature, and it allows you to give a lot of flexibility to your end users.
- Go green: A thin client VDI session will use less electricity than a desktop computer. Using VDI is a way to reduce your carbon footprint on our planet and save your company money in power costs.
- Independence: With VDI, who cares what device you use? A thin client, a PC, Apple, Linux, etc. As long as you can connect to your VDI with ICA or RDP, you are golden.
Steven S. Warren is a freelance writer with a passion for learning. He is the author of The VMware Workstation 5 Handbook and is a Microsoft MVP.
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