The Basics Of Desktop Virtualization

Desktop Virtualization

As the demands in consumer technology market are increasing, so are the ways which help the businesses to suffice those faster and better. Desktops and laptops are gradually getting obsolete and the companies understand that virtualization can be a real help in meeting expectations of the customers with lesser investments.



The problem though is that too many options for virtualization are present today. Which form of desktop virtualization would benefit what kind of business is vital before the businesses decide to deploy virtualization solutions. The Terminal Services/ Remote Desktop Services, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, Application virtualization etc. have their individual excellence, but these solutions prove revolutionary only if understood and implemented just where these are needed to be.

Here are a few such solutions which have a profound working for their own set of activities, but which should be understood very properly before one decides to go with these:

• Server Hosted Virtual Desktops or VDI:

           Commonly known as Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), this approach helps the users connect to data center virtually. They are then connected to their individual virtual desktops, with the local admin privileges to personalize or install the applications. Users have a one-on-one PC-like experience, while the complete data resides on a single server. The earlier VDI systems suffered the streamlining issues with high definition videos and graphics. This was mainly due to the remote desktop protocols which were used conventionally. However, the advanced systems for VDI deploy much more enhanced protocols which can guarantee a seamless flow of data with graphics rich or very huge files.

• Client hosted Virtual Desktops:

            This is another way of classifying the virtual desktops, based on the type of hypervisor used. There are 2 types of hypervisors which are used for the VDI architectural deployment. These are Type-1 hypervisors which are bare metal, or Type-2, which reside on an already existing OS. The hypervisors are responsible for creating virtual machines. The underlying hardware is usually masked from the OS instances. This helps the OS to get divided to multiple instances, while the same hardware is being shared.

The major vendors like Microsoft, Citrix, VMware and Dell etc. are in a continuous research mode to help improvise on this technology.

• Desktop as a Service (DaaS):

           This is a service model, which helps the businesses to take advantage of the technology, while the service provider gets benefitted by its usage in the long run as well. In Daas arrangement, the businesses delegate the deployment and maintenance to the service provider and pay for the services on a regular basis. The OS maintenance when assigned to the service provider eliminates the need for a dedicated IT department in the Organization.

This model is more of a vendor oriented technology than the business. The biggest challenge involved in this is about the end user licensing agreement. There still are issues over DaaS implementation as to who should bear the licensing fee and the renewal charges. The manufacturing companies have been working extensively in this regard. The model is very similar to the cloud implementation which is in much discussion today. Confined to the desktop virtualization, DaaS can also be termed as Desktop Cloud Model. The major vendors for the service today include Dell, Microsoft and Citrix.

Read about Remote desktop services RDS and classification of virtualization as well.

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