The ABCs of VDI: user perception = reality

In the late 1990s, my company at the time focused on designing and deploying server-based computing (SBC) solutions using Citrix MetaFrame. One of our earlier implementations, at a small school district, included a classroom pilot with 25 Wyse WinTerms as well as 5 legacy PCs kept on hand to run the applications incompatible with Terminal Services. The teacher used one of these PCs, and her keyboard happened to break during the pilot. We plugged in a new keyboard which worked fine, and then plugged her old keyboard into a different unit to show that it was indeed broken. But she went around to all of the other teachers telling them, "Don't install Citrix in your classroom, it breaks keyboards." The project died.

Challenges with VDI

VDI utilizes a very different technology than SBC, but both host desktops on a central server farm controlled by the IT staff. Users become wary as they see the "personal" part of their PCs diminish. They tend to not like change – even when it's positive, and organizations that implement a VDI environment without careful consideration of how it will impact user perceptions do so at their peril.

Virtualizing desktops would be much easier if they could all be persistent. A persistent virtual desktop retains the user's profile and My Documents on a separate user data disk, enabling a very close approximation of the physical version. Maintaining separate operating systems and applications for each user, however, consumes expensive data center storage resources. Administrative operations such as patching and upgrades need to take place for each persistent image. The tie between the persistent profile and the underlying operating system makes tasks such as migrating users from Windows XP to Windows 7 very difficult.

The combination of inefficient resource utilization and management complexity can quickly negate the economic advantages otherwise enabled by a VDI environment, making the persistent virtual desktop model impractical for most situations. Organizations instead typically utilize non-persistent virtual desktops. Users, upon log-in, are assigned a virtual machine from a resource pool that utilizes Windows Roaming Profiles to establish personalized settings. But Roaming Profiles brings its own set of problems resulting from attempts to update user profiles from different sessions. And as user profiles grow, download times increase, network traffic becomes congested and profile corruption becomes much more likely.

VDI manufacturers have been furiously working to resolve the personalization problem. Citrix, for example, purchased a company called Sepago and now integrates the technology as Citrix Profile Manager. VMware announced its licensing of RTO's Profile Manager last year which will be integrated into an upcoming version of View. LiquidWare Labs recently added ProfileUnity to its portfolio. Newcomers Atlantis and Unidesk approach the personalization challenge using containers. AppSense originated the profile management category over ten years ago and continues to lead the industry with innovations such as an ability to manage hybrid environments consisting of virtual, physical and RDS (Terminal Services) architectures.

The Exploding VDI Industry

VDI started as a grass roots initiative around 2005 when VMware noticed its customers configuring desktop operating systems and applications as virtual machines on their ESX Hosts. Someone at VMware recognized the potential huge opportunity and coined the term, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. An industry was born.

The increasing familiarity of IT staffs with server virtualization frequently emboldens them with the confidence to deploy a VDI solution; applying to the desktop the lessons learned from their server virtualization efforts. This approach inevitably leads to trouble when expanded to an enterprise initiative. Wildly varying usage patterns, for example, can quickly oversubscribe memory and disk IOPs – creating widespread havoc among users. Anti-virus scanning configured for a traditional physical environment can quickly bring VDI performance to its knees.

Gartner's March 2009 press release predicts exponentially increasing VDI sales of $65B by 2013, up from only $1.4B last year. The number of VDI disasters will skyrocket as well.

A Strategic Approach to Desktop Virtualization

Desktop virtualization demands a strategic approach incorporating the prerequisite assessment, planning, pilots and managed execution required for a successful enterprise project. Objectives, including projected costs and savings, should be identified prior to starting the design. The planning and proof-of-concept phases can then be initiated within the context of providing a virtual desktop architecture optimized to meet the organization's objectives. The architecture requirements largely determine the VDI components such as hypervisor platform, application virtualization, client devices, storage architecture, back-end virtualization infrastructure and many, many other considerations.

A key objective for a VDI implementation should be to provide a very positive user experience from the beginning pilot up through the production roll-out. Carefully planned deployments can generate a buzz among users, leading to an enthusiastic acceptance of virtual desktops. The appropriate personalization technology is one of the important elements enabling this success.

 

 

Comments

[Ande Leibovici]

Hi Steve,

I'll have to disagree on your comment "Organizations instead typically utilize non-persistent virtual desktops".

I have been consulting VDI in different organizations for a while. Mostly I find that organizations that have not engaged an external authorized partner to design their solution, but instead started as a small pilot that grew overtime, have desktops set as persistent.

At times I find them culturally challenged when moving from persistent to non-persistent.

Andre Leibovici
http://myvirtualcloud.net

[Martin Ingram]

@Andre

We are currently in a state of transition: What you will see most of in organizations at the moment are persistent 1:1 VDI, what organizations are looking to implement in future are non-persistent.

Drivers for this are easier/cheaper management of non-persistent and the fact that a fully personalized non-persistent desktop is now a reality.

Martin Ingram (AppSense)

[Jim Curtin]

Virtual Bridges has been offering the benefits of persistent user experience without the need to store and maintain separate OS and application instances for some time. This is not a future thing. It is available now. The problem is that users are still not aware of anything beyond Vmware. That is changing.

Another big secret -- Virtual Bridges VERDE combines VDI with disconnected use, and has for some time; another "future" that is available now.

[Djfeller]

I think you hit it right, the user experience matters. Users hate change. I'm a user and I hate change. I want my desktop as I want it. Don't force me into a tiny cube. There is a fine line between locking down the environment so much that users hate using it. If users hate the solution, they will find a way to make the project fail. Trust me on that.

You have to get users involved. You have to work with them, but not bend over backwards. This is all done through proper project planning and following a proven methodology.

Twitter (@djfeller)

[Virtual Desktop]

Great post!

For any organization, it is important to understand what types of users you have in your environment. We agree with you a strategic approach towards desktop virtualization instead of a "brute force" approach to a VDI-only solution is key to a successful implementation.

[twitter.com/bobolwig]

Steve, I couldn't agree more with your approach. Every project should include close collaboration with end users and VDI even more so do to the "personal" computing aspect and legacy capabilities they are used to having

[Steve Kaplan]

Thanks for your comment Making VDI wildly successful requires a combination of personalization technology and IT commitment.

[Vaughn Stewart]

Thank you for this great post. The business drivers for VDI are obvious. The virtualization enablers are abundant. The challenges around the constructs of the OS (profile data), the demands of the IO (dirt cheap with mega burst ability), and the threat to users around losing something personal (their desktop environment) are the hurdles of the day.

Thank you for being the evangelist in this market.

On Twitter @vStewed