Taking a leap forward with desktop virtualization. Rafael Colorado, Marketing Director, Cloud Client-Computing 1 Two vital use cases enterprises. Today’s user is more mobile, social and virtual than ever before. In their personal sphere, consumers connect to From a distance, Freescale Semiconductor and the Briarcliff their virtual world from anywhere, any device and all the time. Manor School District might not seem to have much in These next-generation technology users are setting the bar for common. However, this New York State school district and the what an enterprise technology experience should be. leading semiconductor manufacturer both saw the potential of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) to transform stakeholder The primary impact of consumerization is that it is driving productivity and advance their organizational mission. Both enterprises to rethink the way they procure, implement and wanted their users to achieve their full potential by expanding manage technology. The growing influence of end users, access to applications and data from any location. Both coupled with subsequent adoption of bring your own device organizations also needed to optimize IT resources dedicated (BYOD) and mobility initiatives, means that IT organizations to managing and deploying PCs. must balance end-user needs with control and efficiency requirements while managing a range of desktops, laptops and Freescale’s goal was to streamline IT management and enable mobile devices. its engineers in 18 disparate research and engineering facilities to access sophisticated applications while optimizing the cost A second trend impacting IT is the prevalence of server of operation and maintenance of several distant data centers. virtualization, and IT departments are being forced to be These goals needed to be achieved while also safeguarding increasingly tolerant of users interacting with personal cloud their intellectual property and critical data. services from organizations such as Amazon, , , Dropbox and others. This increased level of familiarity with and Briarcliff Manor School District students needed unlimited acceptance of virtualization and cloud-hosted solutions sets access to course material and applications, and a secure path the stage for new end-user computing options like desktop to access these resources from any number of mobile devices virtualization. they might bring to school. “Our previous desktop environment 3 tied them to school computer labs. In addition, we spent How to solve it far too much time fixing hardware, updating software and deploying images.”1 Organizations typically approach this challenge from two perspectives. Some tend to take a traditional approach by Freescale and Briarcliff Manor School District both faced issues reinforcing the management layer of their current end-user similar to those faced by most IT organizations today. Based on computing environment. These companies rely on system our experience working with hundreds of customers we have and configuration management software (i.e. SCCM, Altiris been able to define four categories of common challenges: and others) to improve remote control, patch management, software distribution, OS deployment and patching, network Increase end user Mobile force enablement; access protection and hardware and software inventory. productivity: application availability optimization; downtime mitigation performance Other companies in this category opt to create a secure improvement. enterprise workspace on a user’s personal device that is separate from his or her personal workspace. This approach Improve security: Regulatory compliance; IP known as containerization can help organizations maximize protection; virus protection; security, enable offline productivity and streamline ongoing data security. management.

Consolidate IT resource: IT resource optimization, OS A second approach involves moving workloads from user migration, app deployment/support; PCs to the data center – where the computing resources are hardware maintenance. virtualized in a dedicated private cloud. With this approach, the entire desktop and individual applications run from the Cost management: IT resource allocation to relevant data center. Desktop virtualization is a powerful way to cost- business cost centers; desktop effectively centralize the desktop images (OS, applications, user refresh cycle extension; desktop profile and data) in a secure data center, in a secure data center support cost reduction. which can then be provisioned to almost any device. A virtual desktop infrastructure is one of several desktop and application 2 IT evolution and trends virtualization options.

A number of profound changes impacting IT: consumerization Freescale and Briarcliff Manor School District decided to and BYOD programs, the prevalence of server virtualization, deploy VDI because the technology addressed the four and the use of personal cloud storage such as Microsoft challenges mentioned in Section 1: enabling BYOD, increasing OneDrive or Amazon Cloud Drive. IT flexibility and improving business agility. In addition, VDI provides a platform that helps improve security and regulatory One of the biggest trends impacting the market today is compliance while also strengthening business continuity and consumerization, the tendency of innovative technologies to disaster recovery. emerge first in the consumer market before spreading into 1 Jim Kyriazis, networking technology consultant assigned to Briarcliff Manor from the Lower Hudson Regional Information Center

2 Taking a leap forward with desktop virtualization | Inc., 2014 4 Critical considerations for deploying we recommend and typically provide a benchmarking and sizing exercise that provides a comprehensive view of the desktop virtualization current end-user environment. This process segments users by workload (for example high, medium, and low) of computing Desktop virtualization is a fundamentally different approach resources utilization with estimated growth projections. that requires a number of components including virtualization software, services and end-to-end hardware from servers, Based on thousands of customer interactions, we have isolated storage and networking to endpoints. To be effective, these the key factors IT managers need to consider when deploying elements need to be optimized and specifically designed for desktop virtualization. To help clarify if desktop virtualization is scalability, ease of deployment and efficiency of management. right for you, we have put together a handy chart below that For this reason, the best approach is to choose a technology addresses several of these potential roadblocks and issues. By provider that offers an end-to-end solution with a single focusing on these factors, organizations can chart a path for point of accountability. Before deploying the infrastructure, successful VDI implementation.

Key Factor Definition Example Delivery systems Hosting and delivery of virtual desktops, - On premises applications, and data - Desktop as a service

Brokering and session management software Efficient management and allocation of virtual - VMware Horizon View machines - Citrix XenDesktop - Microsoft Server 2012/VDI - Wyse vWorkspace

User experience Policy and personalization management - Wyse vWorkspace (Profile Management) - AppSense Suite (App, Env. and Perf Manager) - Liquidware Labs ProfileUnity

System monitoring End user and infrastructure performance - Workspace Diagnostics & Monitoring management (Foglight) Endpoint devices Terminals used as part of desktop virtualization - Dell Wyse thin clients, zero clients, approaches and cloud desktops - Repurpose old PCs - New desktops, tablets, or mobile devices

VDI management and storage optimization Image and storage efficiency management - De-dupe technologies (online) - Application layering technologies

Security Protection of confidential data in the data - Desktop virtualization specific anti-virus center, on the network, and at endpoints and malware - Dual factor authentication - Zero clients and virus-immune Wyse ThinOS thin clients

Data center infrastructure On-premise data center hardware including - PowerEdge servers servers, storage and networking - Equalogic/Compellent storage - Force 10 and PowerConnect networking Services Expertise to facilitate sizing, configuration, - In-house expertise deployment and management of the - Dell Desktop Virtualization services environment - VAR

Device management Central management of endpoints. - Wyse Cloud Client Manager - Wyse Device Manager - Wyse Configuration Manager

5 Dell Cloud Client-Computing POV and make desktop virtualization easier to order and deploy than physical desktops. Dell’s acquisition of Wyse Technology Our team has been a leader in developing desktop virtualization and Quest Software in 2012 enriched the Dell cloud client- solutions and has invested heavily in developing compelling computing portfolio with thin clients and management solutions ahead of the industry adoption curve. One of the software, resulting in a mature portfolio that complements major goals of cloud client-computing is to remove complexity Dell’s expertise and investment in data center hardware,

3 Taking a leap forward with desktop virtualization | Dell Inc., 2014 software, endpoints and services. This integrated approach include image management and storage optimization software helps reduce complexity and improve the predictability of each from our partners Citrix and VMware as well as feature VDI deployment. Dell end-to-end solutions scale according to enhancements from Dell Foglight, SonicWall and Credant your needs and expansion goals, thereby maximizing your IT security offerings. department’s productivity. IT professionals should seek out providers that take a holistic An example of Dell’s ability to integrate core competencies and open approach to the technology. Your Dell team is the recent extension of Precision Workstation capability to welcomes the opportunity to discuss your specific needs and virtual end-user computing. This provides enormous flexibility, concerns surrounding desktop virtualization. allowing organizations to run everything from simple task- worker applications to complex, graphics-intensive applications required in engineering, architectural, and design environments. 6 Use case outcomes

The Dell Wyse Datacenter for Virtual Workstations is an ISV After evaluating several compelling infrastructure and desktop certified solution that draws from top components including solutions, the Briarcliff Manor School District team chose to PowerEdge servers and Precision Workstations, ® GRID deploy Dell infrastructure, services and thin clients, based technology, Wyse endpoints and top desktop virtualization on the capabilities and performance achievable with our VDI software, all specifically designed to enable high-end graphics solution. Dell delivered in a phased approach, with a variety of workload delivery from the cloud. elements including Dell PowerEdge servers, Wyse zero clients, VMware Horizon View and Dell Services.

“Because we’re one of the first districts to support PARCC testing with our Dell VDI, we’re now in high demand. We’ve held briefings to help other districts get their VDI initiatives under way, and we’ve received recognition from our peers across the region.”2

At Freescale, Dell began designing and testing a VDI solution that would support global workforce access to secure, applications “From the very beginning, Dell was committed to working with us in partnership to deliver a technically superior solution,” says Aidan. “Because it was the most engaged, most responsive partner for the proof of concept, we ultimately chose Dell to deliver our global VDI infrastructure from end to end.”3

7 Summary

Desktop virtualization approaches are often varied and can The way users access enterprise data is changing rapidly take different avenues to addressing organizational needs. and with it comes new threats, new challenges, and new Organizations interested in the technology are looking for opportunities. Your IT teams no doubt will need to make some a solution offering ease of setup, deployment, scale and important decisions about how they want to proceed, to management. Additionally, Dell’s emphasis on maintaining the safeguard company data and reclaim control over employee most extensive interoperability through open standards allows devices and end points. We believe desktop virtualization can organizations to maintain existing relationships that drive their be the best option for any number of enterprise use cases. technology preferences. If you would like to learn more about the technology, Dell can provide additional insights into how both Freescale and Dell’s solutions are designed to start small, leveraging a single Briarcliff Manor School District were able to achieve their goals server, and scale to high numbers of diverse users – 5,000 or and how we can help you achieve yours. more – with enhanced redundancy, availability, management and security. On-premise enterprise solutions include preconfigured and pretested infrastructure comprising the entire virtualization stack server, networking storage and cloud clients using industry-leading VMware®, Citrix®, Microsoft® 2 Jim Kyriazis, Network Technology Consultant, assigned to Briarcliff Manor from or Wyse vWorkspace software. Additionally, Dell Services can the Lower Hudson Region Information Center) design, deploy and support the overall infrastructure, and 3 Chris Aidan, Head of Engineering High Performance Compute, Freescale even provide ongoing remote management. Other options Semiconductor

4 Taking a leap forward with desktop virtualization | Dell Inc., 2014