Desktop virtualization vs. PCs

Desktop virtualization cuts energy costs and boosts security compared to traditional PCs, but ROI is elusive

Proponents of desktop virtualization have many reasons to advocate the technology over traditional PCs, including opportunities for reducing energy costs, centralizing desktop administration, increasing security and providing flexible work environments for end users.

But there are two sides to every story. Shifting to PC virtualization can raise new management challenges, require significant data center architecture changes, and introduce costs that can make a return on investment elusive.

13 desktop-virtualization tools

Adoption of desktop virtualization remains scarce, although interest is high among enterprises, as many mull an overdue desktop refresh. A lousy economy coupled with disinterest in Windows Vista led many companies to delay upgrading their desktops. Now that Windows 7 is available and the economy is stabilizing, there's renewed interest in retooling the desktop infrastructure including desktop virtualization.

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Proponents of desktop virtualization have many reasons to advocate the technology over traditional PCs, including opportunities for reducing energy costs, centralizing desktop administration, increasing security and providing flexible work environments for end users.

But there are two sides to every story. Shifting to PC virtualization can raise new management challenges, require significant data center architecture changes, and introduce costs that can make a return on investment elusive.

13 desktop-virtualization tools

Adoption of desktop virtualization remains scarce, although interest is high among enterprises, as many mull an overdue desktop refresh. A lousy economy coupled with disinterest in Windows Vista led many companies to delay upgrading their desktops. Now that Windows 7 is available and the economy is stabilizing, there's renewed interest in retooling the desktop infrastructure including desktop virtualization.

An ITIC survey of more than 800 businesses worldwide shows that 31% of respondents plan to implement a virtual desktop infrastructure in 2010, more than double the amount from the previous year. A related technology, application virtualization, is also on the rise, with 37% of respondents planning implementations -- an increase from 15% the previous year. Likewise, Gartner has found that 33% of organizations plan to deploy hosted virtual desktops in 2010.

With virtual desktops, users can access their applications and data from any machine. Administration can be easier for IT teams, since operating systems and data are centralized. PC backups can be easier to conduct, and some companies find virtual desktops improve business continuity and disaster recovery operations.

But moving desktop images and applications from the user's PC to the data center requires a major shift in IT infrastructure and mindset. For starters, more than one flavor of desktop virtualization exists, and a key challenge is determining which architecture is best for an organization.

For instance, there's the classic hosted blade PC, a one-for-one swap where a single machine in the data center supports a single desktop. Or, companies can consider hosted shared desktops, where all processing happens on the server side and a server can support as many as 500 desktops. Similarly, hosted virtual machine-based desktops depend on a server-based virtual machine supporting dozens of desktops. Another option is a streamed desktop, where the operating system and apps execute locally, but the operating system and the apps are maintained centrally and streamed down when the device boots.

As companies consider which flavor of desktop virtualization is best for their environments, IT teams need to weigh the associated network and storage requirements.

"Because [hosted virtual desktops] replace PC internal hard disks with shared and centralized storage, organizations planning deployments need to prepare for increased storage capacity, not only for end users' immediate and future needs, but also for enterprise purposes — data management, backup and provisioning," wrote Mark Margevicius, a vice president and research director at Gartner, in a 2010 report.