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Client Virtualization Next-Generation Technologies Enable IT to Increase Productivity, Reduce Complexity, Cut Costs and Improve Management of Devices

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Client Virtualization Next-Generation Technologies Enable IT to Increase Productivity, Reduce Complexity, Cut Costs and Improve Management of Devices WHITE PAPER Client Virtualization Next-generation technologies enable IT to increase productivity, reduce complexity, cut costs and improve management of devices. It’s time to take a serious look. 1 Executive Summary Table of Contents 2 What Is Client Virtualization? 2 Why Client Virtualization? 3 Presentation Virtualization 4 Application Virtualization 5 Desktop Virtualization 6 Where Is the ROI? 6 Understanding the Risks 7 Managing the User Experience 7 Getting Started 8 CDW: Your Client Virtualization Partner Executive Summary For organizations with hundreds to thousands of endpoints, managing their devices can be an enormous challenge. Employees are more mobile than ever, working from home and on the road, and easy access to the Internet means that most organiza- tions now operate on 24x7 schedules, 365 days a year. The challenges and costs of supporting hundreds or thousands of users utilizing all kinds of devices is something IT has been trying to get under control for quite a while. Client virtualization brings a wide array of products and solutions that offer the promise of finally enabling IT to gain more control over their client infrastructure while at the same time still offering a rich, rewarding experience to users throughout the organization. With client virtualization, IT has the opportunity to reduce total costs, improve security, and enhance compliance and business continuity, thereby beginning to put in place an infrastructure that will be practical, efficient, flexible and scalable for years to come. 2 CLIENT VIRTUALIZATION What Is Client Virtualization? organization would expect to see after implementing client virtualization technologies. At its most basic level, client virtualization technologies enable Patch Management: Think about the tasks involved in patch IT to deploy both applications and desktops in a more efficient management. You have to update the firmware and software and secure manner to almost any endpoint over any network. drivers frequently; you have to update the operating system; Because client virtualization comes in a variety of flavors, the you have to update the utilities and plug-ins — for instance, technology can sometimes be overwhelming, depending upon Internet Explorer, Antivirus Client agents, Instant Messaging which vendor is promoting which flavor. To keep the concepts Client, WebEx client, Flash Plug-in, etc. That does not include simple, what follows are descriptions of three prominent ways the applications, which are also getting updates frequently. in which client virtualization is deployed, in order of maturity As each of these patches becomes available, you have to test and including listings of key vendors. Each of these approaches application compatibility to ensure that all related applications will be discussed in greater detail in the body of this article. will still work together. As an example, a CRM application may • Presentation Virtualization. With presentation virtualiza- not work with Office 2010 and, at the same time, may only tion, applications are stored in the data center and end users work with a particular version of the Flash player in Internet access them through a web portal from which the applications Explorer 7. And you have to run through this regression testing and the data are “presented” to them from a Windows Server for hundreds of different applications. session. Leading vendors include Citrix and Microsoft. • Application Virtualization. With application virtualiza- With client virtualization — and, in particular, tion, applications are virtualized into an executable file that desktop virtualization — a centralized image is used, is run from the client device. The virtual application is then which makes patching desktops much easier and more predictable, enabling patch management to isolated from the operating system, ensuring compatibility no be rolled out to all end users in a matter of minutes. matter which version is being used. Leading vendors include Microsoft, Citrix and VMware. Security: Endpoint security has become a nightmare, both • Desktop Virtualization. With desktop virtualization, the figuratively and literally, for many IT professionals. The threats operating system and applications are stored within the data to security are becoming more complicated. Users can save center and are presented/streamed to the end user via mission-critical data on unsecured flash drives. They can burn any client access device. Leading vendors include VMware, that information to a DVD or upload it to a dropbox, Apple Citrix and Microsoft. iDisk, Windows Live SkyDrive or other locations where data can easily be compromised. Users can also save documents Why Client Virtualization? on their notebooks or their broadband modem’s flash drive. So why should you consider client virtualization, and why now? Without encryption, any of this data could easily be extracted from any of these devices, even by a novice PC user. For IT professionals, endpoint management is becoming more and more challenging. Workers are more mobile, organizations Today more end users are bringing in their own endpoints more global and devices become both commonplace and and adding them to the corporate network, which then more diverse. Yet, in the face of these mounting challenges, becomes an instant security risk. Devices such as the iPad many IT departments are also facing declining budgets and are quickly penetrating the market and growing in pop- growing pressure by corporate management to “move at the ularity. Some companies are now looking at implementing speed of business.” network access control (NAC) to allow only certain devices Client virtualization, in any of the available flavors, offers IT the on their network and prevent unauthorized ones. This is one opportunity to gain more control over their endpoint devices, way of addressing the problem, but client virtualization which means they can dramatically reduce the costs of support- offers other ways without necessarily placing limits on ing these devices and users, while at the same time improve end-user devices. security, compliance and disaster readiness throughout the Viruses can destroy the data on PCs, and virus attacks con- organization. What’s more, client virtualization offers a highly tinue to increase, which makes outbreak management more scalable solution that reduces IT overhead and simplifies IT difficult, even with a well-planned antivirus deployment. management, enabling the organization to be more flexible Anti-malware software must be continually updated to when rolling out new applications and services as needs change. prevent keyloggers from stealing password information and How can client virtualization simplify management, improve critical data and moving it offsite. Desktops can be “cleaned” security, reduce costs and make IT more responsive to the when a user logs off, wiping away any data, downloaded organization’s needs? Here are some of the benefits that an files or possible viruses. 800.800.4239 | CDW.com 3 With client virtualization, desktops and applications Presentation Virtualization can be centralized in the data center, thereby Probably the most mature of all client virtualization technolo- offering more granular controls over what end gies, presentation virtualization allows multiple users to run users have access to. applications from a set of Windows servers, thereby remotely delivering applications to almost any device. Software Distribution Management: Software goes Diagram 1 explains what this technology looks like from through major revisions every one or two years. For example, an architecture perspective. Presentation virtualization, when the progression from Office 2007 to Office 2010 took two productized, is known as Windows Remote Desktop Services years. Rolling out an application such as Office requires a great (formerly Terminal Services), which runs on top of Windows deal of testing and migration assistance. Many new versions Server 2008 and essentially allows users to access independent of software not only conflict with certain operating system versions, they also conflict with application versions. For exam- sessions that contain the applications installed on the server’s ple, when Office 2007 came out, it was more than six months operating system. Although the use of application virtualiza- before it was supported to work with Adobe Acrobat. In tion technology is recommended (as shown in the diagram), addition, some versions of software require a new version most deployments still use the traditional model of install- of another software to enable it to work properly. Again, for ing applications directly on the server. Reasons for doing so Office 2007 to work with Adobe Acrobat, customers had include cost and the maturity of application virtualization, to buy upgrades to Adobe Acrobat V8. Further complicating but as of September 2009, Microsoft has included the use matters in managing and upgrading software, each operating of its App-V product as a benefit of the Windows 2008 system and application platform may have a completely RDS CAL, which means that every RDS Server has access different update method — for example, updating applica- to application virtualization. tions on Windows is completely different from updating applications on the Mac platform. Diagram 1 — Presentation Virtualization Architecture With client virtualization, software distribution Excel 2010 Adobe Acrobat Outlook 2010 becomes simple because applications can be accessed from within the
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