by: VMware Senior Manager, EUS Client Engineering Aju Sukumaran
When it comes to technology, enterprise users expect their work environments to duplicate their personal ones, and that means ‘everywhere’ there is persistent and flexible management.
The Horizon 7 with VMware App Volumes™ and User Environment Manager provides a persistent user experience on a non-persistent virtual desktop. There is no need to modify desktops or applications themselves with the App Volumes solution, and you can scale out easily and cost-effectively, without compromising the end-user experience. Application updates are pushed in real time, and end users don’t need to log off or shut down the virtual desktops to receive the updates. An IT admin has significantly more flexibility to perform the regular maintenance activities on desktops as App Volumes decouples the application from the base machine. Plus, the User Environment Manager (UEM) takes care of the user application settings and personalization, allowing them to persist across different virtual desktops.
There were other advantages to the migration as well. The AppStacks feature in App Volumes makes application lifecycle management simple and effortless. An IT admin can create applications based on use cases. And stateless, persistent desktops enable end users to install applications themselves.
Guess who our first customer was?
The implementation aligned with VMware IT’s mission of ‘drinking our own champagne’ via our VMware on VMware (VoV) initiative. In essence, VMware became our first customer. We walk in our customers’ shoes to ensure their experience with our products is the best possible. Plus, we can point to internal case studies to demonstrate how a customer might best use the products, something that ultimately builds buyer confidence.
Significant savings from every angle
Stateless desktops integrated with AppVolumes and UEM also enable IT to cut costs by reducing the backend virtual desktop infrastructure dramatically. Local deployment modes for ThinApp packages allow IT to establish thousands of virtual desktops that share a common ThinApp package via AppStacks—without the need to stream or copy the package locally. Publishing applications using Horizon 7 simplifies management of line-of-business applications, allows the delivery of Windows applications to non-Windows devices, and can potentially provide licensing advantages. This strategy can substantially reduce CAPEX and OPEX costs, in addition to simplifying installation, upgrades, and troubleshooting. In fact, VMWare IT estimates an average savings of 80% per user depending on the applications, thanks to the switch from standalone to published apps.
And we learned important lessons
It is very important to install the application and stack it properly, as is verifying/testing to ensure consistent and reliable app volume delivery. Knowing your app and its functionality is vital when selecting it for the App Volumes-based delivery such as registry, data-save locations, and similar.
Our team also discovered you must segment users, and a one-size-fits-all approach is a non-starter. IT must partner with business units for shared responsibilities, as well as form a close relationship with R&D and product teams. Floating pools must be incorporated with App Volumes. A ‘follow-the-sun’ support model is crucial for global deployment, as is leveraging other support teams. Finally, top-notch customer satisfaction must be paramount to ensure seamless end-user adoption.
To learn more, attend VMworld 2018 session WIN1236, The Secret Sauce Behind VMware’s Internal Horizon Desktop Deployments.
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