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The IT managers are always under pressure to do more with less, given the escalating cost of maintaining remote PCs and laptops.
Besides, IT teams also have to address the demand for user flexibility and mobility, with proliferation of personal devices in the workplace. To address the surging costs, the first wave of virtualisation was capitalised by enterprises to consolidate servers into virtual hosts, and this gave significant savings on physical server deployments. The second wave, which is ready to invade the industry, is that of desktop virtualisation, which will go a long way to alleviate these issues.
However, it has been a slow take off for desktop virtualisation, though analysts have been bullish about its growth in the coming years.
The desktop virtualisation market is in the pilot stage. It is only now that IT heads are finding reasons to adopt this technology. The reason for the slow take off, they say, is the fact that a lot of groundwork still needs to be carried out before jumping on to the bandwagon.
IT Next embarked on a study to find out the growth opportunities that desktop virtualisation opens up for customers; the business benefits that drive down cost of operations and the innovations in the space which are catching customer attention.
Why Virtualise Desktops?
Desktop virtualisation is not yet a must have phenomenon, and is still in the development stage. Though IT heads are cautious in biting the bullet and taking the risk of implementation, there are reasons for considering desktop virtualisation or virtual desktops.
Majority of the customers and vendors say that the need for simplified management and security is driving the demand for desktop virtualisation solutions. The key considerations that would compel V Srinivas, CIO, Nagarjuna Fertilisers and Chemicals Ltd, towards desktop virtualisation would be: increased security threats in the current desktop environment, centralised hardware management capabilities with respect to maintenance, centralised application upgrades and patches installation, hardware resource pooling along with application sharing, and higher bandwidth availability in the LAN network owing to the availability of high-end switching infrastructure, at an affordable cost.
But, Rakesh Mishra, Head, IT&C, Jindal Steel and Power Ltd, can see the benefits of going in for desktop virtualisation solutions given the challenge of maintaining 1300 desktops and 300 laptops on his corporate network while providing user satisfaction. Since it is not possible to have a dedicated in-house system engineer at every location, going in for VDI tops our agenda, he says.
A good reason to go in for VDI technology, says CVG Prasad, CIO, ING Vysya Bank, is the standardisation of desktop that helps ensure a secure environment; easy change management; mobility of users across locations; and centralised data.
As a desktop virtualisation solutions provider, Rajat Mehta, Country Manager, Emerging Business Unit, PSG India, Hewlett-Packard India Sales Pvt Ltd, observes that increased need for green computing solutions; high end improved security; and consolidation of infrastructure for better manageability, are the strongest reasons for customers to look at these solutions.
Seema Ambastha, Director, Technology, VMware India, says reduction in the total cost of ownership (TCO) of a desktop infrastructure is the primary reason for implementing desktop virtualisation.
With virtual desktops, provisioning, managing, maintaining and de-provisioning desktops gets centralised to the server hosting these virtual desktops, she says. The currently available virtualisation solutions allow users to access desktops using VPN and SSL encryption, besides enabling centralised anti-virus protection, supporting authentication with smart cards and others, drawing customers attention towards them.
Jyothi Satyanathan, Vice President, ibm.com, Inside Sales Organisation, IBM India /South Asia, says that evolution of next generation offerings such as virtual bridges, which removes several barriers in businesses, has driven customers to look into virtualisation seriously.
According to Satyananthan, the newer offerings address desktop flexibility, providing simple and costeffective solutions in an integrated software appliance model.
According to Manish Sharma, Vice President, APAC, Ncomputing, a virtualisation solutions provider, the key reasons for looking at desktop virtualisation are price, performance and access. CIOs who have plans to move to cloud and web-based computing, and who are looking for better manageability of PC proliferation and cost reductions, are also considering virtualisation solutions.
Apparently, there are enough reasons for IT heads to look at desktop virtualisation solutions, and analysts too are bullish about the growth in desktop virtualisation technology.
Assured Growth
Vendors, such as HP, are leveraging the growth potential in the VDI space.
Mehta goes by the 25 per cent growth that IDC has projected in VDI, and expects it to be a big market, especially with over 500 companies in the process of evaluating these tools.
Quoting Gartners projections about the market, Ncomputings Sharma says that hosted virtual desktops will reach 74 mn users by 2014, which represents 15 per cent of the total business desktop market. This is just the tip of the iceberg as it does not fully reflect the potential of business deployments. It only considers deployments for user groups of 250 or more as economically viable for virtualised desktops, says Sharma.
Vendors like VMware have worked out their market approach based on the study by Frost & Sullivan. The study says the desktop virtualisation market, including hardware, software, licensing and management tools, is estimated to have been approx $79.24 mn in 2008. This is expected to grow at a CAGR of 33.1 per cent by 2015.
While the vendors are bullish, IT heads are taking a pragmatic look at the technology. They say desktop management is a pain for all CIOs, and soon it will be the mandatory for IT infrastructure to go virtual. Most opine that the desktop virtualisation could be about 5 per cent of the total PC market at this point of time.
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