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Article Contributed By Mike Palin, CEO of Leostream Corp.

2010: Getting Real With VDI

There's a lot of excitement about the potential for hosted virtual desktop infrastructure (HVDI) in 2010 and with good reason. Limited trials and proofs of concept have been successful with end users and proven scalability. In fact, we're seeing a number of proposed enterprise deployment plans, encompassing tens-of-thousands of users, receive the "go ahead" from the c-suite due to the success of such pilots.

Yet, despite this very healthy trend, this will not be the singular "year of hosted virtual desktops," at least not to the degree that some project. VDI has indeed become "real" but it is still experiencing growing pains. Foremost, complexity issues exist and this requires that market leaders, such as VMware and Citrix, focus attention on resolving deployment, management and scalability issues that hamper their solutions: a move that will greatly benefit all the players involved in the desktop space.

With the advent of large-scale migrations, hosted virtual desktop architects have begun to understand that business processes - from access rules to user needs to organizational requirements - require more attention than previously thought. Those responsible for desktop and data center oversight also are increasingly realizing there is a need to adapt their management systems in order to gain the flexibility to integrate infrastructure, address new business rules, procedures, policies and more.

The fact is, the virtualized environment is a very different world - and this will become a more prevalent theme moving ahead. For instance, look at security: basic concepts such as covering passwords before storing or transmitting them haven't been completely thought through by many involved in VDI. Server and storage folks aren't accustomed to the kinds of security issues desktop administrators have been facing for a long time. Now, server and storage staff are involved with hosted virtual desktops. IT will need to ensure personnel versed in security of the desktop are involved, causing some departments to restructure or modify their internal operations. 

Basically, the devil is in the details. While significant market growth will occur, there are also a great number of lessons still to be learned. As such, vendors with real-world experience and some of the larger deployments under their belts will gain the most in the coming year.

In 2009, the concept of the perfect single-stack solution lost some luster. Unanticipated problems and increased understanding prompted many to really "kick the tires" of some of the major hosted virtual desktop solutions to determine the true cost and value that individual components offered. For instance, the connection broker gained a lot of attention in the past year. Many realized that less-than-robust ones don't scale sufficiently and some, with more limited functionality or the inability to interoperate with existing data center resources, can bring large-scale desktop virtualization projects a halt. This can hamper adoption and reduce the ROI potential for these projects.

As a result, IT managers have begun mixing and matching best-of-breed components to create stronger solutions - and this will become the standard approach for 2010. Additionally, many now have come to realize that a heterogeneous approach to VDI avoids vendor lock-in and builds in strategic flexibility. This is what happens in any maturing market and that's a good sign for all of us.

Finally, it's been reported that many enterprises have foregone complex "plumbing" releases of Windows due to complexity issues. Many feel that the full-point upgrade, Windows 7, will be widely adopted. Major OS changes tend to spur other proposed upgrades throughout an enterprise, and especially with Microsoft's move into the virtualization space, hosted virtual desktops will benefit. Additionally, Microsoft obviously has experience in cultivating partnerships and reseller channels. I believe increased competition among the big players will bring about more cooperative effort in the space, a greatly increased pool of emerging vendors, all contributing to the development and delivery of new virtualization technology in the year ahead.

Hosted virtual desktops have seen real growth and much more is to come. However, 2010 will be the year the industry "gets real" with HVDs. The period will indeed be marked by strong gains, but, the challenges encountered and complexities resolved will create a mature foundation that will serve as a catalyst for even better years ahead.

About the Author

Mike Palin is CEO of Leostream. Previously, he was CFO of Sitara Networks, a QoS product company, where he played an active role in raising four rounds of funding and oversaw key aspects of operations including the management of outsourced product manufacture. Prior to Sitara, Palin was CEO of Homeview. He also served as CFO of Indus River Networks, which was sold to Cabletron in 2000. Palin is a graduate of Brown University.