In IT heads around the country are keeping a keen eye on the developments in the VDI space, given its ability to lessen their desktop management pains
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.
Reasons for consideration
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 orvirtual 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 considerationsthat 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-housesystem 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 cardsand 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 addresses desktop flexibility, providing simple and cost-effective 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.
Adoption criterion
From adoption standpoint, HPs Mehta finds a clear blueprint being worked out around desktop virtualisation by the IT\ITeS, education and retail sectors; who are adopting the sequential pattern of deployment.
IBMs Satyanathan finds virtual desktop providing cost-effective solutions for financial services, manufacturing, healthcare, retail, education, IT/ITeS and government sectors across the functionalities.
Providing insights into the prevailing scenario, Surajit Sen, Director, Channels & Marketing Alliance, Netapp India says, the predominant desktop virtualisation solution used is VDI, which is nothing but an extension of the thin client idea. In this case, however, apart from using one server to service the processing needs of individual users; each user has an operating system instance on the server, running as a virtual machine. VDI is often what people mean when they use the term desktop virtualisation, in a general way.
From a users standpoint, IT heads are in the pilot mode and testing out solutions. CVG Prasad, CIO of ING Vysya Bank, is currently working out a business case to justify the cost and effort versus benefits.
He maintains, We are currently doing the required groundwork viz, assess the impact on our network and the effort involved (if any) in porting the branch applications to VDI environment.
Nagarjunas Srinivas has already deployed desktop virtualisation as a pilot starting with its implementation in the IT Department. We deployed VDI with about 60 nodes in our R&D division way back in 2007-08, to address the issues of security, centralised data management, data protection, etc, says Srinivas.
Rakesh Mishra, Head, IT&C, Jindal Steel and Power Limited, is waiting for the right time to deploy taking into account the constraints of local area network connectivity, which at present is on the wireless. However, IT heads warn about the key considerations that need to be adhered to before jumping into deploying VDI.
They are: analyse scope of the project; user base; performance parameters; and implement desktop virtualisation first in the areas like R&D, application development and testing. It is recommended that VDI initiatives are driven by senior level IT associates in the organisation, when being implemented for non-critical divisions. VDI implementation requires some level of change management apart from dispelling unwarranted fears at the end user level on data privacy. This can be done only if senior managers are also involved in the implementation process.
Srinivas warns that VDI implementation exercise should not be done as one big bang exercise, rather it should be carried out in a phased manner with some level of end user buy-in.Besides, it will also require application compatibility in a heterogeneous IT operating environment, complete support from the vendor and scalability factoring.
Business benefits
Mehta vouches for major business benefits, given the huge amount spent on product refresh cycles. There is a huge saving on capex, besides users provided access to high-end computing and multiple OS on the same devices, leading to increased productivity.
VMwares Ambastha sees straight cuts in desktop infrastructure management costs. With all virtual desktop images centralised on the server, updates and patches to applications and operating systems can be done centrally, reducing manpower cost and the time involved in going across to each desktop and maintaining it manually. With security managed at the server, the need to deploy additional IT security measures and the associated costs are reduced drastically, she says.
According to Sen, the aim should be to achieve the right balance between flexibility and control around specific needs, such as security and availability, or constraints around remote access or high performance, to gain maximum benefits.
IBMs Satyanathan too finds the integrated virtual desktop taking many sourcing, resource and complexity issues out of the equation. Thus, customers can get more business value from their IT dollars faster. It can reduce upfront costs and total cost of ownership (TCO), eliminate large capital costs with provision to use Linux desktops, and avoid licensing cost on proprietary systems.
Ovums analyst Roy Illsely maintains that desktop virtualisation is at best a cost neutral solution: the biggest benefits are that it removes the need for remote desk side support staff, helpsimposestandardised solutions, and supports business agility by not hardwiring the person to a device.
ING Vysya banks Prasad expects reduction in cost of workplace support, better availability, higher RoI, lower TCO and lesser time to market.
Jindals Mishra foresees a trouble-free environment in managing 10,000 desktops in two places rather than 100 desktops across 50 places. Deploying resources to manage the number of places adds to the cost. It is best to have the VDI as it helps us reduce cost and complexity of managing the desktop environment; aids migration to new software; enhances security, protects data, increases user productivity; and lowers the energy bills and hardware cost that can be brought down by 40-50 per cent with VDI, says Mishra.
Road ahead
Like others, Mehta too says that cloud will be the big enabler for desktop virtualisation solutions, as common standards evolve. According to him, various application solutions providers will evolve a subscription model which will lower the capex.
Sen believes that opportunity wise, there are around 1.2 billion desktops in the world, and according to Gartner, around 60 mn desktops will be virtualised over the next few years.
As a progression, Nagarjunas Srinivas sees integration of mobile applications with the VDI space and reiterates that the latter will be a success only if vendors are able to provide end-to-end desktop virtualisation solutions.
Mishra predicts VDI rapidly becoming the main way to empower the next generation workforce by delivering end-to-end desktop virtualisation solutions and services. OS virtualisation is the next step in the market and it offers three times more virtual images or desktops on the same infrastructure, making it an extremely cost-effective proposition. The combined solution accelerates the performance of all applications accessed through VDI.
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