A quick grasp on Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

You own a PC, a laptop, tablet or even a smart phone for home use, you connect it to a server at your office over a network/internet, your personal machine now will inherit the environment of your workplace, and you now have a desktop environment that you use in your office. This means you will be using the operating system, applications, and storage that are configured and only meant for your work purposes.

The moment you disconnect from your office server, your machine is then ready for your own personal use, (your own OS/applications/data storage…etc), assume you also work for a client on a contract, you then connect the same machine to your client owned server and start working in its designated desktop environment and so on.

This means Anytime, Anywhere access to multiple desktop environments without compromising on security and compliance on either side, this is all about desktop virtualization or Virtual desktop technology. This allows the user to switch to multiple desktop environments from one machine and operates on it at the ease of working on a local set up.

While accessing a server for a Virtual desktop, the technology can create restrictions for the end user to store or download data on the local machine; the data can be protected at the server side.  The server that hosts the desktop maintains multiple images of the desktop environments of its users and delivers it on demand.

Benefits of VDI

Centralized desktop management, maintenance, and asset/inventory tracking by IT departments possible even when the remote device not connected to its server.

In a larger set up, the connecting devices can be thin clients, this result in lower capital expenditures.

IT departments can seamlessly make modifications and migrate to different versions of operating systems and applications without having to do these activities on each individual machine. This significantly reduces the total cost of ownership and optimizes the time and effort required for centralized desktop management.

This technology also paves way for a Hosted Virtual Desktop (HVD) model, this is a desktop delivered from the cloud, and users will then have options to choose different flavors of OS, applications and environments depending on their needs.

Future of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

With the advent of new IT infrastructure delivery models spurring out of Cloud computing, for organizations increasingly looking for low cost of ownership on IT investments, virtualization technology comes as a boon.

IT systems for the end user is getting thinner and the back end infrastructure growing powerful and complex, as the evolution and maturity of virtualization technology grows; business organizations would adapt this in a face pace.

The hosted virtual desktop market is exploding, according to Gartner. In a new report, Gartner predicts the global marketplace for hosted virtual desktops will top $65 billion by 2013.

This means a host of opportunities will be thrown open for PC vendors and IT services vendors who are focused on providing solutions and consulting services in the infrastructure services domain. 

Some key players in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Market:

Citrix  - XenDesktop

VMWare  -  View
Microsoft - Remote Desktop Service

Red Hat - RHEV for Desktops
Oracle (Sun)

Quest
IBM