Desktop virtualisation is an opportunity for CIOs and IT managers to reduce costs for their organisation and move from the role of firefighter to a strategic enabler of their business, Ronnie Dockery, Windows client business lead said yesterday.
Dockery, who was speaking at the Microsoft Virtualisation Summit in Dublin yesterday, said consumerisation of IT – where people want to bring their personal choices of technology to work, from smart phones to personal computers – is driving the growing take-up of desktop virtualisation.
“Everybody wants to log in and get a standard experience from anywhere,” Dockery explained. “The challenges of this is to do it all at the right cost. Traditionally, the desktop can be a resource eater but with desktop virtualisation there is now the opportunity to reduce your costs and transition from the role of firefighter to being a strategic enabler for the business.
“But by enabling resources you still need to make sure your data is compliant and stored in a secure, managed environment.”
Dockery went on to say that desktop virtualisation also lends well to business continuity and disaster-recovery strategies. “If your site fails, if lightning strikes, people will want to be able to get access to the data they need. If many Irish companies, for example, were working with this technology, many workers wouldn’t have been affected by the bad weather because they could keep on working from home.”
Desktop virtualisation may cut desktop costs
Desktop virtualisation, Dockery continued, ultimately helps IT managers and CIOs to reduce their desktop costs and extend the life of their PCs.
Working via a hypervisor, like Microsoft’s Hyper-V, IT professionals can manage the entire infrastructure through a single pane of glass. “They can also improve IT flexibility because of faster desktop provisioning and faster problem resolution.
“They can increase business continuity because workers can work anywhere at anytime from connected devices. It also enhances security and compliance because data is stored centrally. Turn your machines on and off, the data stays with you and you don’t risk losing IP.
“Desktop virtualisation extends the life of PCs, centralises data into the data centre and help remove the need for hard conversations with the accountant.”
Dockery said IT management is simplified by the use of Microsoft’s System Center technology which enables virtualisation streaming across the organisation. “It enables simplified management of an entire desktop virtualisation strategy.”
By John Kennedy
Photo: Ronnie Dockery, Microsoft Windows Client manager
