Technology Tips -

Monday, November 21, 2011

If you are clear with the understanding of virtualization then we will go ahead with virtual desktop  infrastructure and discuss how it’s very important and  this technology includes what.
Virtualizing means virtual not physical very simple to understand - you are doing something with your desktop virtually not physically is -desktop virtualization-, so there are different terms used for virtualization -one is desktop virtualization is the idea of providing desktop with virtual concept and another aspect is desktop virtualization infrastructure- as its name says infrastructure includes hardware, network resources and OS as well, so VDI is the mechanism of creating a computing environment with hardware resources virtually.

Why VDI?
Managing IT infrastructure and operation in any organization is a tedious job, whenever organization have new employee in then he needs a provision of desktop and application etc, if you consider a scenario where you have to manage more than 1000 desktop without virtualization then what you would do, means very simple desktop virtualization helps you maximize your hardware resources utilization by just VDI model.

On the other hand - everyone wants their application access on diversified devices like mobile, laptop and access application from anywhere, so one point which is quite prominent here – you can easily access your desktop if you are using VDI technology. Where you will be having your windows and the entire desktop for you to start work from anywhere. There should be mechanism of managing desktop easily and in a centralized place to face desktop challenges like we have in the form of new employee.

Another aspect of using VDI is – once you work with application and there are number of application setting you need to do -so imagine without desktop virtualization you are spending time on configuring all those data and setting on different desktop for your new employee. Even when the same employee accessing application from other network or pc then he needs that same application setting there if he wants to access application from there, one of the example of application setting is environment variable – you need to set these variable when you access your application from other PC’s or devices. Another example is user’s profile which can be stored in centralized data center. Once your application and data is stored in centralized data center so you can take backup easily.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure technology can give you secure and centrally managed desktop environment – it’s just simplifying delivery of desktop with application and providing complete os, application and users setting and data in virtual machine which resides in data base center.
So far Microsoft and vm ware has provided various tools for desktop virtualization and citrix also representing few tools for virtualization.

Microsoft technology for VDI:
Hyper v is used for creating multiple os on hosted server machine where you can create multiple desktops for other users whenever it is required. Microsoft System center, App V, Remote desktop services Windows 2008 R2 are tools for creating and managing virtual environment and infrastructure.

HP is also providing Virtual Desktop Infrastructure technology other vendor includes Citrix, VMware and IBM.