Page 15 - COMPASS, Q2 2017

User Experience
Virtual Desktop
OS, Data, Apps
OS, Provisioning & Update
User Data & Personalization
Application Virtualization
Thin Client Desktop Laptop
Desktop VM
• Disaster Recovery
• Security
• Availability & Backup
Delivering OSes and apps to users in these OBYOD days is more complicated than ever.
ver the past 10 years, end-user computing (EUC) has been a big topic of conversation, and a game- changing technology. Let’s think back to how desktop computers used to be provisioned: First, the hardware was procured—usually a giant, heavy, 32-bit tower PC that
took up precious real estate on the end user’s desktop or was under the desk, putting out heat.
After procuring the hardware, there was the OS install, unless it came embedded with Windows XP or a similar OS. Once installed, a security scan had to be run and a backup of the physical hard disk created, which was usually a 40GB SATA disk. After that, the device was managed by configuring the networking and joining it to the domain. Finally, the end user was able to log in and do her work—day in and day out—until the hardware lifecycle started all over again.
That was a heavy, arduous and expensive lifecycle model. It was guaran- teed that in three years or so, the hardware would need to be refreshed and the process started all over again. But with the introduction of VMware View, the way EUC was done was changed forever.
THE GOLDEN YEARS OF VDI
Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) made its grand entrance with the release of VMware View 3.0 in 2008, and it was game-changing. The idea of provisioning a desktop with so much physical presence and administrative overhead was now a thing of the past—for most, anyway (see Figure 1).
but it wasn’t a cheap model of EUC. While clunky, the 40GB physical hard disks that the desktop PC contained were fairly expensive.
Then along came persistent virtual hard disks (VHDs) that tied to a costly SAN back- end. This early evolution of VDI was expen- sive, and came with sticker shock for many. Besides the licensing cost per concurrent virtual desktop, there were other costs—con- sider the infrastructure underlying the VDI implementation that needed to be in place before the first desktop could be provisioned:
• VMware ESXi—the hypervisor at the foundation of the virtualization infrastructure
• vCenter Server—to manage the infrastructure
• VMware View Composer—to clone and automate certain functions
• View Manager—to manage your View environment
• View Client—to provide communication between VMware View and the desktop OS
The protocols used to present the desktop sessions were Microsoft Remote Desktop
At first, virtual desktops were configured with persistence or persistent disks. If you wanted a virtual desktop with a 40GB drive, it was thick provisioned and delivered to the end user as such.
That end user received a full 40GB hard disk, and any changes that were made by the end user were permanent. Each time the end user logged in, they logged into the same desktop, which retained the same settings, day in and day out. Again, this was great,
Figure 1. How VMware saw virtual desktop infrastructure in the early days.
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