Virteva is an independent managed IT services firm headquartered in Minneapolis MN, offering IT consulting and uniquely efficient IT solutions.

Desktop Virtualization (VDI)

Cloud-hosted or on-site. The promise of VDI, delivered.

VDI Overview

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is an innovative way to provision and manage the Windows Operating System (OS). By allowing IT administrators to separate the OS, applications, user profile and user data from the underlying PC hardware and run it as virtual desktop machine on high-powered servers in a data center, organizations are able to deploy and manage each component independently in response to changing business requirements and user needs. Users can then access their virtual desktop from any device, anywhere, and get the same or better experience than if the OS and applications were loaded in the traditional way.

Why Consider Desktop Virtualization?

There are several problems with the traditional approach to provisioning and managing desktops and laptops. They are expensive to purchase and maintain, they are complex in their operation, they are inflexible and are hard to secure especially in remote location use cases.

• According to a study by analyst firm Gartner, companies spend on average $3,500 per PC per year on operating costs. 77% of this is accounted for by service and support alone. Desktop virtualization allows the central administration of desktops and consolidation in the data center, helping to cut administration costs significantly.
• Requiring end users to work from the office or offering limited remote access can result in lower productivity and lower job satisfaction. In the fight to attract and train talented employees, this is major concern.
• Locking-down endpoint devices to address security and manageability concerns will cause increased end user frustration due to lack of mobility.
• Physically shipping PCs to remote workers, branch offices and newly acquired companies will introduce lengthy delays to key initiatives, resulting potential lost profits, loss of first mover advantage, etc.
• Investing resources in continuously updating, patching and refreshing PCs, regularly disrupts users without any perceived benefit.

For these reasons and many more, news ways of provisioning desktops, including desktop virtualization, are now entering production environments in organizations worldwide.

The Benefits of Desktop Virtualization

With ever-increasing IT efficiency mandates and companies contemplating how they can get to Windows 7 quickly and easily, many are rethinking their desktop environments and asking, "How can we better manage desktops?" Many are opening their eyes to how desktop virtualization could help with:

Security and compliance

• Managing compliance one desktop at a time is expensive and prone to breaches.
• No local data on the client devices — all data is kept within the confines of the data center. A stolen client device won't pose a security threat because it never contains the data.
• No data can be downloaded from the client device onto a USB device (unless the user has specific permissions).
• Healthcare organizations with HIPAA requirements are one of the fastest growing vertical markets for desktop virtualization.

Enhanced User Experience and Employee Satisfaction

• Better performance — Desktops can run on faster server hardware with reduced latency in applications (as resources reside in the same place).
• High availability — You can run critical desktops with a much higher level of service if you move them into a data center and just give users thin clients.
• Desktop resources (memory, applications and disk) can be modified with little or no interruption to a user’s workday.
• Any device, any location access without compromising security.
• Ability to incorporate two-factor authentication.
• Desktop disaster recovery through regular backups of all desktop data.
• Quiet workspace — thin clients have no moving parts so there is no white noise generated from spinning fans and disk drives.

End User Device Cost Savings (CapEx)

• Thin clients are significantly less expensive than desktops (thin clients are $200 – $300, desktops can exceed $1,000, and laptops are even more). A Forrester Total Economic Impact study indicated that virtual desktops are less than half the cost of physical desktops.
• Refresh cycle for thin clients is 7 years or more compared to 3 – 5 years for a typical desktop.
• Re-purposed PC workstations used to access a virtual desktop extends the life of that asset that otherwise would be discarded.

Improved Desktop Management Efficiency (OpEx)

• Desktop management costs decline by simplifying and standardizing the OS image and client devices.
• Fast provisioning for new users. A new VDI workstation can be set up in less than 15 minutes compared to hours or days to procure and provision a traditional workstation.
• Fewer IT desktop resources are needed to support the same number of end users. Thin clients require little or no support. One Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) support engineer can handle 1,100 virtual desktop users compared to 200 traditional workstation users. Reports of PC support organization’s reducing FTEs by 50% are common.
• Fewer help desk calls if the organization implements user self-service capabilities, e.g., password enrollment/resets.
• Fewer desktop-related problems: Support calls reduced by 60 to 70 percent on average, in some cases as much as 80 percent.

Flexibility

• Virtualizing desktops separates your users' instances of Windows from their client device and allows the user to have the freedom of mobility and the flexibility to use the appropriate device, at the appropriate time, to access their desktop.
  • Give remote users more flexible and secure access to applications and data.
  • Give mobile users who work offline a full PC experience regardless of network connectivity.
• Opening branch and offshore offices — Companies wanting to expand their business presence into more locations can do so without adding to IT management costs.
• Mergers and acquisitions — Large scale integrations of new desktops and applications often take too long and cost too much.

Energy Savings

• Thin clients use as few as 4 watts compared to 90 to 160 watts for traditional workstations. Thin clients generate less heat so HVAC costs are less.
• In the data center, infrastructure services can lessen the impact of additional energy needs through server load balancing for batch jobs and automated shut down of idle virtual machines.

Architecture

Desktop virtualization is available in two primary deployment models, shared and dedicated.

Shared deployments allow many users to log-on to a single, generic OS and share the resources of a server in the data center. Since the OS is shared, any changes the user makes to their desktop when logged in will not be present next time they log in. This model was formerly called Terminal Services, and is now referred to by Microsoft as Remote Desktop Session Host (RDSH). These capabilities are provided natively with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2.

Dedicated deployments of desktop virtualization allow each user log-on to an OS that is provisioned solely for them. This OS can be customized to their needs and will seem to the user like a traditional desktop since any change or customization they make will remain the next time they log-on. This deployment model is commonly referred to as Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and the major vendors in this space are Microsoft, Citrix, VMware and Quest.

Deployment Options

Virteva is unique in its approach to the delivery of desktop virtualization. Whether you want the system designed and built for deployment on your infrastructure, or whether you want to use Virteva’s cloud-delivered infrastructure-as-a-service, the choice is yours. We stand ready to deliver in either scenario.

On-site: Virteva has considerable experience at every layer of the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure software and hardware stack. Our years of experience running highly available IT infrastructures for Fortune 500 corporations allows us to minimize design time and assures you of the most cost efficient deployment.

Cloud-delivered: Take the “I” out of VDI. Virteva has deployed a Private Cloud infrastructure within a highly secure 3rd party data center. The Virteva Private Cloud (VPC) has been constructed with the highest performance hardware and uses advanced, high-availability design elements for the delivery of virtual desktops to our customers. Virteva has staff and systems that monitor and maintain the systems 24x7 and our expertise in desktop management can be leveraged as a backup to your staff, or as the primary level of desktop support, allowing your staff to work on more strategic IT initiatives for your business.

From Wow To How

Architecting the right solution requires an understanding of many vendor offerings and how they can be integrated to address specific business needs. Unlike server virtualization, desktop virtualization is not a technology-driven project but an end-user initiative to meet the demands of dynamic organizations and demanding end users as they access and process their data.

Building the right solution for your organization starts with understanding end user needs for access, application usage, printing, security and mobility. A use case or scenario-based approach is the best method for systematically identifying the needs and understanding the workflow and process requirements of all user types, which then drives the architectural design and desktop virtualization components.

Virteva’s Assessment Service will guide you through this process and will provide a roadmap that helps organizations move successfully into production.

Step 1: Define Goals and Objectives

Step 2: Inventory Applications and Develop End User Profiles

Step 3: Define Use Cases

Step 4: Build application/OS images and establish a desktop virtualization test environment

Step 5: Execute Use Cases

Step 6: Enhance the Desktop virtualization solution

Step 7: Pilot in one unit, gather feedback, and refine the configuration as needed

Why Virteva?

Virteva provides a full spectrum of design/build/run services to assist in your transition to desktop virtualization. By supporting all four major providers of desktop virtualization technology, we take a vendor agnostic approach which allows us to focus on you first and technology second. We are certified partners with Microsoft, Citrix, AppSense, and Quest. In addition, Virteva is a Microsoft Gold Partner with a specialization in Windows 7 desktop conversions.

Virteva is also unique in its approach to delivery of desktop virtualization. We will build it for you on-site at your location or you can use the Virteva Private Cloud delivery and skip past the capital expenditure and design/build phase. Either way you can be assured of a successful implementation and gain all the advantages of desktop virtualization.

The Bottom Line

Desktop virtualization works well for many organizations. It provides a broad range of economic and efficiency benefits that outweigh the additional costs. It reduces the cost, complexity and pain of desktop provisioning and management, and extends the life of aging hardware. Especially important for security conscious organizations, desktop virtualization protects sensitive data, devices and core services, and enables secure access from anywhere. End users enjoy the same user experience and have the added flexibility to quickly move their session from one device to another.