By: Courtney Burry, Director of PMM, VMware End-User Computing BU
In the past several years, many customers have turned to desktop virtualization in an effort to drive down costs and improve operational efficiencies. This year, however, the tide has shifted. In a survey recently conducted by Forrester Research, Inc., and blogged about by David Johnson (Has VDI Peaked? A Change in the Adoption Drivers Sheds New Light, And New Life, April 1, 2013), the number one trigger for customer interest in VDI was actually around the need to support employee access across locations.
Interestingly, the drivers associated with reducing costs and improving manageability have not gone away. These are still very much on the minds of IT as they turn to VDI, thin client or blade PC technologies-but the need to support BYOD and device diversity has become a major focus of a large number of organizations-with many turning to desktop virtualization as a key technology enabler to help them address these requirements.
And while many customers have already made the move and are seeing real benefits, there are a number of organizations that have not. An inability to build the business case is often cited as a barrier, but as Johnson also points out in his blog-many organizations also feel that they don’t have the skills or resources on hand to dedicate to VDI projects.
VMware and Cisco recently partnered up to help take these objections off of the table. Together, the two companies have tested and validated a range of VDI architectures designed to meet the needs of organizations across a wide variety of use cases. These fast track architectures have not only allowed customers like COLT and University of Colorado Boulder to get started simply and cost-effectively but they also provide new customers with the ability to start small and effectively scale on demand.
As storage represents the largest cost outlay to any VDI implementation (Morgan Stanley, 2011), key to these validations was looking across a wide range of storage options including direct attached storage or “on-board architectures” with vendors like Fusion io, hybrid SAN or “simplified architectures” with companies like Nimble Storage, Nexenta, Atlantis Computing and Tegile and “converged architectures” with NetApp and EMC to help ensure great performance at lower costs.
Additionally, we also looked at storage optimizations native to VMware vSphere and VMware® Horizon View™, including unique features like SE Sparse, Storage Accelerator or Content Based Read Cache, VAAI and Storage Tiering to help customers further drive down costs and improve user experience.
The result is a wide range of prescriptive, highly automated design options (with plug-ins to VMware vCenter) that will allow customers to more efficiently and cost-effectively tackle VDI and address workplace mobility.
To hear firsthand, how organizations like yours are reaping the benefits of VDI deployed using VMware Horizon View with Cisco UCS, join us for this informative webcast. You’ll hear from featured speakers from Wipro and UC Boulder, sharing valuable perspectives that can accelerate your ROI on VDI
Webinar: “Customer Insights: Desktop Virtualization On Your Terms”
Or reference the following resources:
Cisco and VMware Horizon View Technical Whiteboard
Cisco and VMware Horizon View Promotional Bundle
Check out these other blogs for reference as well!
Jim McHugh’s Blog “Desktop Virtualization On Your Terms – Flexibility and Choice with Architectures That Fit”
Rick Snyder’s Blog “Accelerating Your Success with Cisco Desktop Virtualization Solutions”
