Virtual Desktops and Mixed-Mode Computing
Posted on Fri, Oct 01, 2010 @ 08:08 AM
Although application virtualization has been around for many years, desktop virtualization is still a relatively new technology. Due to its unproven nature, IT professionals have been skeptical of desktop virtualization’s ability to perform in enterprise business settings.
However, now that an enterprise-ready stamp of approval has been given to the Citrix and VMware desktop virtualization offerings by Burton Group, a critical eye should be cast toward these technologies and what they mean for your end-user computing environment.
Running Windows with Mac OS X in a virtualized environment is one of the many options coming in the future.
Single-Mode vs. Mixed-Mode Computing
In the past, IT organizations have primarily worked in single-mode, or distributed computing environments with exceptions when necessary. Those exceptions have been, primarily, around large ERP or Financial/HR systems that would be presented to users via a Terminal Services solution. Distributed computing has been the standard operating procedure for companies ever since the PC was introduced into the business world. However, we have reached the breaking point of the distributed computing model.
In 2008 Forrester Research released a paper called Demystifying Client Virtualization, which declared that “…the traditional desktop model — inherently insecure, inflexible and hard to manage — is a thing of the past. Organizations will instead identify their users by criteria like task-based, knowledge, or power users and will deliver dynamic desktops accordingly… it’s the future of the corporate PC.”
Though it has taken a couple of years since the report was published, we are starting to see more organizations identify their end users in this dynamic fashion and use virtualization as an affordable and secure way to deploy appropriate technologies. However, to deliver images for these groups of individuals in the most efficient way possible, IT professionals must look at mixed-mode computing as a deployment option.
Mixed-mode computing, at its simplest, can be defined as having multiple ways to deliver the technology to end users that they need to do their jobs.
The Reality of Mixed-Mode Computing
As IT professionals start to look at desktop virtualization as a way to “deliver dynamic desktops accordingly” to their end users, they will be faced with the challenge of integrating and supporting a virtualized environment within the distributed computing model that already exists. This challenge is the reality of mixed-mode computing.
Unless an organization is planning to replace their entire distributed computing model with a centralized computing model, such as desktop virtualization, two environments will have to be supported. This will require a strategy that takes into account all of the factors necessary to support both a centralized and a distributed computing environment.
IT professionals will need to find ways to integrate new technologies with the old and implement solutions that will complement what their organizations have in place today. For example, desktop virtualization would be a good fit for a salesperson that needs to demonstrate a complicated practice management solution while maintaining a controlled environment separate from their daily work. However, the CEO of that same organization might be able to get by with applications delivered to an iPad. Those technologies must also live in harmony with the service technician who requires his laptop be attached to a proprietary piece of hardware that a virtual desktop or application cannot talk to. All of these technologies can and must co-exist if an organization is going to deliver users what they need when they need it.
The static ways of single-mode computing are on the way out and a more dynamic way of delivering resources to your end users is approaching. Are you ready for it?
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Jason Dell is a Converged Network Solution Consultant at MCPc, and is responsible for developing and programming custom solutions for clients. His expertise includes network security and security for mobile devices in the enterprise. Connect with Jason on LinkedIn.
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