Breaking Free from the Desktop
Imagine a world where from any computer in the world connected to the internet you can access your desktop environment complete with your software which only your desktop had through a simple login and password. Or on the other hand imagine an office where every PC everyday has a unique desktop with new, pristine components each time they log on. All this and much more is what Virtualization promises as the need for computing increases, the world wide web holds the key to information and the internet connectivity gets better and faster by the day virtualization is a topic on every CIO’s lips.
“Desktop virtualization is a rapidly expanding new market with tremendous upside potential” says Gordon Payne, senior vice president and general manager, Citrix Systems. Gordon does have a point considering the virtualization industry is going on an upsurge like never before. According to a report research company IDC predicts that by 2010 there will be 41 million physical servers deployed worldwide, a 700% increase since 1995. The servers currently deployed as virtualized are 22% and that number is projected to reach 45% in just 12 months.
Why the shift to a virtual environment can probably be understood if the problems of desktop management are considered. Desktop management today is manual, time-consuming and expensive. Ensuring data security and regulatory compliance is complex when desktops are distributed over a geographical spread. While traditional desktop management tasks include installing and maintaining hardware and software, spam filtering, and administering user permissions besides data security being a major area of concern in desktop environment. Virtualization promises to do away with all this completely and make work flow simpler by easer access to applications, softwares alongwith better data security and backups. Also as the need for high end computing increases virtualization keeps the computer as simple and application free as possible.
All this has created a huge virtualization opportunity and it’s perhaps the best news for virtualization companies like Citrix Systems, Vmware and more. Consider the case of Citrix Systems which had in the recent years enhanced its virtual infrastucture solution portfolio through acquisition of Xensource, last month announced a series of applications around virtualization. Their desktop delivery solution XenDesktop promises an “unparalleled end user experience”. So bullish are they on virtualization that an entire portfolio of end to end virtual applications to infrastructure is ready to be served and customers seem more than willing to try out the new virtualization dish. Their XenDesktop product line offers customers a choice of five different editions with varying levels of functionality designed to make desktop virtualization a mainstream reality for customers of all sizes. This includes a free version and goes upto Enterprise and Platinum editions for high end customers. If companies like Citrix are on the backend infrastructure and applications, on the other end are companies that are betting their new apps on virtualization. Companies like Microsoft, Google to Dell or just about any IT giant are now riding the virtualization wave.
To get a better perspective lets understand on a basic level how virtualization and virtual desktop works. Here is a primer. Normally you a user load the software through a CD/DVD or download it from the internet. The software resides on the hard disc of your computer. Documents, spreadsheets, and presentations you create reside on your computer and through email or through applications like Microsoft’s Shared View or Google Docs you can share them. If your hard disc crashes or there is a hacker attack on your system all data is lost. Now take this to the enterprise level where there are 1000’s of computers and information creation, sharing and security is of vital concern. So is the concern for software availability, licensing, updation and much more. Imagine if all this could happen from a cloud meaning all information of your company created by 1000’s employees resides in a data center and can be accessed or shared as per need. Or from the same cloud if software could be served to your computer. In other your words you simply login through a user name and a password on any machine and you could get your applications, documents and everything else you may need. As an enterprise all it requires is a creative IT department and in effect all people in the organization can actually be served a new computer virtually each time they logon.
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How big is the virtual desktop market? Souma Das, Area Vice President, Citrix India calls “The online desktop as ‘the next big thing in IT revolution’. With around 40 million internet subscribers in India, there is a huge opportunity. Desktop virtualization is the next level of innovation at Citrix.” Smaller companies like Nivio.com too are betting on the market based on a consumer driven model which aims at the common man, students, mobile professionals or just about anybody.
It isn’t just software companies that are betting on virtualization hardware companies are at it too. Hardware companies like Wyse, HP and others hoping virtualization will drive thin client sales. Consider the case of HP 2533t Mobile Thin Client which is probably betting on a totally new segment of consumers. Like laptops fitted with Windows of Linux operating system the virtualization market is going the same way. HP is supporting Citrix’ XenDesktop on its industry-standard ProLiant serevers and Compaq thin client.
Word processing, email, and now even all the software getting virtual. What next? Will it be the OS?
Puneet Mehrotra was recently in Houston to view Citrix’s virtualization initiative
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