Virtualizing the Desktop

How do organisations reduce the costs associated with application delivery and at the same time continue to ensure business agility and compliance? And can an application virtualization approach help address this challenge?

Application virtualization unlocks the application from the desktop and eliminates many of the traditional barriers that impacted the overall time to value and risks to business continuity of traditional packaging mechanisms. Application virtualization isolates the applications from the OS and each other. This isolation holds the key to reducing costs associated with:

• Dynamic link library (DLL) Hell (conflicts between two applications overwriting critical shared resources)
• Running side-by-side components on the same systems (Java, .Net, browsers)
• Productivity and risks to business continuity during installation and post-installation periods
• Application break-fix issues due to installer issues
• Additional testing for application compatibility (will this application work with the base apps on the stack?)
• System failures (hardware/OS) for a remote workforce that does not have easy access to IT
• Repackaging and retesting due to fixes/patches needed to address identified incompatibility issues
• Complex applications not playing well with the OS or the other applications
• Remote user downtime/disruption due to system failures

In addition, OS migrations (such as XP, Vista) are streamlined by enabling the migration of current applications and user settings

So what do firms need to be aware of when considering an application virtualization implementation? The trick to application virtualization is which option you decide to choose (agentless or agent based); and the amount of integration needed to get them to work with current systems and processes. IT administrators should remember that regardless of whether the application is physical or virtual, the same regulatory, user and technical rules apply.

When considering which solutions to purchase, think about the hidden costs and risks. In terms of client requirements and integrations, consider whether there are additional agents that need to interact with the OS and/or current distribution agents. What will their impact be on all the applications if the agent fails? Are your current management tools compatible with that agent? And if you have to integrate or upgrade, how will it work in a mixed environment during the migration process?

In terms of server-side requirements and integration, consider what the hardware, OS and maintenance costs are. What integrations are available for your existing systems? What about your service desk, asset management system, and your inventory and software management systems? What will the ongoing maintenance be for those integrations? Are the vendors partners or competitors? Does this introduce new tools to learn, manage and implement? What is the impact of this on your resources?

Over the next 12 months, I believe application virtualization and desktop virtualization will continue to be one of the bigger drivers in the evolution of the desktop. Agentless application virtualization in particular provides a cost-effective approach that enables all the benefits of application virtualization for both physical and virtual desktop infrastructures without the additional costs associated with integration, process re-engineering and system migrations. Many of the larger system management vendors, analysts and enterprises have confirmed that agentless application virtualization will be at the forefront as this space matures. The choices virtual client solutions provide will only further expand the enterprise’s ability to rise up to the challenge of complying with strict security directives, while at the same time maintaining the right level of agility and flexibility to be productive both on the road and in the office.  

Jeanne Morain is a Senior Alliance Marketing Manager for VMware

What the analysts say
“IDC believes the market will increasingly implement virtualization in a growing set of use cases, in order to help customers create much more agile service oriented infrastructures. Corporations are looking for virtualization solutions that are easily managed, reduce costs and provide a stable, secure program that is easily implemented. Thinstall is providing a dynamic solution to meet a range of user demands,” says Michael Rose, Associate Research Analyst, Enterprise Virtualization Software at IDC.

Some of the primary benefits of VMware’s application virtualization (Thinstall) are:

• Client-less and server-less: Requires no pre-installed software on the host PC. Client-less architecture makes it easy for an original equipment manufacturer to embed the technology into desktop management solutions and ISV software.
• Infrastructure agnostic: Runs from any device using the existing infrastructure
• Secure with no kernel-mode interaction: Runs entirely in user mode on locked down PCs
• Wide platform support: Supports older platforms such as NT4 as well as the latest Vista 64bit platforms
• Simple to use, deploy and maintain: New users can learn to use and deploy their first package in a matter of hours