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Virtual desktops remain a topic of interest for me in several ways, I’ve seen the challenges with desktop virtualization both from a technical and a process based viewpoint. In terms of process the challenges tend to be around the marginal direct and indirect cost to the investment and space in the data center that might be needed to host user data/virtual machines – the olden days “leave me alone, it works”, until we can combat that with real innovation and improvements in delivery that will continue. At this point I’m not complaining about the technology as much as the process, in the enterprise, the multinational, they might say “there’s your virtual machine sir”, great the user replies “how can I get Project, and a more memory”, oh fill out a new call and purchase request for software licenses and memory. The same process we might have on the physical desktop and often it can take so long to get everything in place that it never gets of the ground. For a virtual desktop we need to effectively ‘just switch’ bringing on new user groups starting one at a time, the receptionists that book in people downstairs that only need Outlook and Internet Explorer to the room booking system, to the facilities guys that need a few easy applications and Office. Once that’s done we can move on to IT, to specific user and business groups – the traders might not have a virtual machine for their main pc, but could they not be ‘given’ a free virtual machine for their Email/browsing on a common network and put all their super fast, super low latency applications and trader desktops on the trader rendezvous enabled network?

But before as we’ve mentioned many a time, please have the pre-answers (these are off the top of my head)

• But I need admin rights – fine for what applications, for what activities related to your job, limiting the ‘signing of the form’
• The memory/disk/specific user issues that you might expect, but I want PaintShop Pro – how do we package/deploy it in the virtual world
• What about physical devices/multiple screens or printers, I use my LaserJet III to print and what right have you got to say it’s not supported
• The issues relating to billing/cross charging and support – how much does the virtual machine and thin client cost against a physical pc – a service company might provide a physical PC with Office and Windows (including the hardware and support) for £600 or so a year – with all the bits we need for a virtual machine what’s the per unit cost including the servers, software and everything else
• What platforms are supported – can we provide NT/Linux/Windows XP/Solaris? You’d be surprised what some support teams might have
• Who owns issues and what’s the escalation path – as a trader I know I just call Trader support, but I’m not waiting in a queue of seven escalation paths to have my virtual machine rebooted
• Are we abstracting the user from the hardware or virtualizing to thin clients and providing a virtual experience?
• What features are included – rollback/backup of your desktop, we can do it in the virtual world so why are we not?
• Crucially who’s the yes or no man – we need someone high up who can overrule or reboot people when it gets emotional – “but I’m happy with my Dell Optiplex 110 running NT4″

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