Virtualization is the first step of standardization before moving to the cloud. It improves productivity, increases transparency, enhances security and slashes costs. Yes, it is a significant step in changing how IT operates and is changing how organizations interact with employees and their clients. In the past decade, the technology industry has gone through a rollercoaster ride. Everything around us is getting virtualized. Virtualization technology has made some gigantic changes in the IT industry.
Virtualization, as a technology, has become a cornerstone in today’s IT-enabled world. Since its introduction in the 1960s, and popularization in the 1990s, it has taken over the data centre space almost completely. It has been the reason for the development and success of the cloud computing. Nowadays, Virtualization marches victoriously across the globe, adding to its list of applications in the whole IT industry. The possibility of hosting multiple servers on a single physical machine is just one benefit among all those offered by virtualization. Leaving aside the data centres and servers, the most important application of today’s virtualization technologies is probably Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, or VDI. Businesses use VDI software to effectively use existing computer resources without increasing costs, quickly update enterprise software tools, allow employees to run multiple operating systems on the same machine, as well as use their own devices while still maintaining data security. Virtual desktops give users more desktop space to group related windows, and improve productivity by allowing the user to quickly locate and switch to any window or group of windows. It also allows the user to easily re-organize groups and move windows around. According to Parag Arora, Area Vice President & Country Head, India Sub -continent at Citrix Systems, “Virtualized service technologies has allowed businesses of nearly any size to consolidate data and applications onto fewer servers, doing so in less space, consuming less power, and usually for less money long term. In turn, Virtualization has greatly simplified how a company manages IT infrastructure, efficiently.”
The key reasons for adopting desktop virtualization is management of the desktop, security of data and user mobility. It also enables fewer compatibility issues when migrating to newer versions of applications or operating systems. This solution is effective in hospitals, banks, call centres and the hospitality business, or other environments where a largely non-technical, distributed user base need access to computing environments. Talking about more on benefits of VDI, Neeraj Bhatia, Director – Partner, Alliances & Commercial Sales, Red Hat says, “Everyone has to compete at a global level. Virtualization allows them to address that demand immediately. The value of virtualization rests in the simple facts that it makes end-user computing environments more secure, reliable and easier to support. The lower total cost of ownership in Virtual Desktops reside on one physical machine and the costs of IT PC support are dropped drastically and supported from a central management system resting on the server. And yes, the Indian markets have a clear understanding.”
Growth of VDI in India:
India has in excess of 12 million businesses which have a high degree of technology influence and are looking to adopt newer IT products. The country also ranks in the top five for global startup ecosystems, making the environment very competitive and technology employed being a key differentiator. Everyone has to compete at a global level. Virtualization allows them to address that demand immediately. The value of virtualization rests in the simple facts that it makes end-user computing environments more secure, reliable and easier to support. The lower total cost of ownership in Virtual Desktops reside on one physical machine and the costs of IT PC support are dropped drastically and supported from a central management system resting on the server. And yes, the Indian markets have a clear understanding.
The increasing adoption of BYOD is also supporting the growth of Virtual environments and is definitely making employees productive. With benefits like lower total cost of ownership (TCO), increased security, reduced energy costs, reduced downtime and centralized management, more and more companies and customers in India are considering Virtualization.
Key areas of concern for VDI
While technology will undoubtedly spur innovation, we should also reassess the security threats comes with this advancement. Noted Economist Hal R. Varian, Professor Emeritus at UC Berkeley, has compared security levels to medieval walls by stating, “You can always spend more and more to make them taller and thicker, but the gates will always remain your weakest point.”
Despite virtual desktops being very similar to their physical counterparts in terms of functionality, the misconception that they are less susceptible to infection is quite widespread amongst users and even IT professionals. So, the security of the virtual desktop is no different from security of the desktop computer – both in terms of user level security (who has access to the desktop) and data security. Applying traditional endpoint security solutions to VDI may hamper performance and may compromise critical corporate information.
Other challenges specific to VDI include the need for good network, storage and server capacity. One cannot work offline on VDI and having a fast network in essential for it to be able to improve worker productivity. Advising business leaders interested in virtualizing their desktops, Sundar Balasubramanian, Senior Director of General Business (Commercial Sales & Partners), VMware India opines, “Businesses must adopt a mobile cloud-first approach to application and desktop delivery to make maintenance of desktop environments simple, cost efficient and highly secure.” In fact, advancement in VDI technology is already addressing these challenges. For example from VMware’s own portfolio of products it has the VMware Horizon family – which extends the power of virtualization to deliver desktops and applications with great user experience, closed-loop manageability, and hybrid- cloud flexibility. Horizon 7, the latest addition to this product family, has instant Clone technology coupled with App Volumes which dramatically reduces infrastructure requirements while enhancing security. To improve end user satisfaction Horizon 7 has a new protocol built for the mobile cloud that makes the desktop experience better across any network or location and simplifies authentication across all desktop and application services while improving security with smarter, contextual, role-based policies that tie to the user, device or location.
One could argue either ways when it comes to security. With every new technology, which provides ease of computing, monitoring, accessibility, increase productivity etc, security is often a barrier to adoption. Administrators have greater control over the computing environment, applications and data thereby making VD’s secure. The only downside would be the need to invest heavily for devices to interact with a centralized computing infrastructure. Again, this is a non-issue when you check the rewards and weight it against the risks. So, businesses leaders must carefully consider factors like scale of operation, cost involved etc before making a decision to invest in virtual desktop infrastructure. For instance, smaller businesses with limited capital should opt for a DaaS model which reduces upfront investment.
Partner’s excitement for VDI
Virtualization is slowly becoming a huge game-changer for partners in the IT industry. Across the industry, companies – big and small – are trying to reduce costs by switching to cloud-based virtual/hybrid systems. One upcoming trend in virtualization that must be seen by partners as potential business sales/business revenue is growth of the container ecosystem. As the number of companies around containers grows and along with it the technology capabilities of containers, its market will expand. It also allows the partner to build a services business giving them a better grip with their customers.
Looking at the latest scenario of Indian IT industry, partners have every reason to expect that VDI to become self sufficient in terms of revenue and operation in near future. From partner perspective, as VMware move into the 2nd half of 2016, the focus now is to get the partner ecosystem completely aligned to the evolved end user computing strategy. This will be achieved through a series of training programs, enablement activities and hands on experience labs specifically designed for its partners. Sundar Balasubramanian says, “We see tremendous growth potential across geographies as well as multiple industry verticals and our partners are our head-lights for penetrating further into these avenues. We will be engaging with our key partners to build and execute joint go to market strategies for demand generation around the EUC portfolio including our virtual desktop solutions.”
As far as Red Hat is concerned, it is working to identify partners who have the ability to invest ahead of time or already have the capability to support their customers get through the journey of virtualization.
Only Partners can make VDI, a Reality
Implementing VDI strategy requires expertise that many organizations lack. To reap virtual desktop benefits that include cost savings and better security, many IT pros turn to system integrators, resellers and other service providers to set up the VDI and make sure that their IT staffs know how to make the most of it.
VDI implementations typically require new infrastructure. Virtual desktop installations call for high input/output operations per second (IOPS) performance. The best desktop virtualization services practice for resellers is to first talk up VDI within the context of a broader solution that solves multiple business problems with their clients. Along with this, partners should manage customer expectations regarding infrastructure needs, and reinforce the sales message with virtualization’s improving ROI. For positioning itself for Virtual Desktops opportunities, Interra Information Technologies has a powerful informed sales and marketing team in the US. They are upgrading positioning and branding strategies constantly. Shedding more light on this, Asoke K. Laha, CEO and Managing Director, Interra Information Technologies excerpts, “We depend however, most crucially on the quality of our delivery and meeting customer satisfaction parameters to a very rigid degree.” Further giving an important advise for the peer group aspiring to take up Virtual Desktops into their portfolio, Asoke K. Laha opines, “I would suggest companies should identify areas in which they can try virtualization by phases. It needs to assess your particular business, culture, technology, skill pattern and then strategize as to how to sail up to the clouds really.”
Challenges for partners:
From a partner’s point of view, VDI isn’t easy to stand up and deploy, and a lot of partners have complaints about it: It’s too complex, it costs too much, performance stinks etc. According to, Asoke K. Laha, some of the initial challenges that come with adopting virtual desktops include:
- Figuring out your needs – one of the challenges is determining how to actually put a hypervisor to use. Do you install on a couple of servers? Do you virtualize all?
- Cost – While adopting virtual desktops will help saving money, seeing the ROI will take a few years and not right away
- Storage – Storage is still a huge issue, especially if a project is not planned properly
Finally…
VDI is opening a lot of doors to resellers as the benefits of the technology become better understood and the desire to leverage those benefits growing in customers. As for the market, it is believed that the market for VDI continues to gain traction despite the unique challenges that face its deployment.
