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Virtualization

Most experts recommend a multi-phase approach for implementing VMware. The problem is that following this approach can take anywhere from 6 to 18 months before any benefits are realized. What if you’re already convinced of the VMware benefits and are looking to accelerate the adoption of VMware for competitive advantage? Here are some steps to help you accelerate a VMware deployment:

Use a Reference Design

There’s no need to engineer a new design for your VMware infrastructure. Most IT (Information Technology) professionals enjoy the engineering step and the result can be an over-complicated hardware layer that actually inhibits a VMware deployment. Use an existing and proven reference design that scales.

Plan For Storage Growth

Because a VMware infrastructure can scale rapidly, you need to plan for storage growth before deployment. If you already have a SAN (Storage Area Network) or a NAS (Network Attached Storage), now is the time to integrate that storage into your VMware infrastructure.

Use Imaging Software

Loading Virtual Machines from scratch is a poor use of your time. Use readily available imaging software as well as the VMware provided tools to quickly build Virtual Machines as well as migrate a host to a virtual machine.

Choose a Partner

Like every other kind of deployment, choosing the right partner makes all the difference. In addition to access to VMware pricing, the right VMware partner can help you avoid costly mistakes. Avoiding distractions and focusing on issues of scale are key to a rapid VMware deployment.

General, Virtualization

I’m uncertain if EMC’s Chuck Hollis was explicitly referring to VDI when he posted about thin clients, so it took me some time to grasp the magnitude of the changes ahead implied in his posting. A picture from VMware will help illustrate how VDI works.

So whats the big deal? The user desktops are not deployed at their desks. They are virtualized and managed and deployed in the data center. As a result of this, they can be displayed anywhere with the same functionality and the user experience does not change.

There are two points to amplify from Chuck’s post:

1. Thin Clients in this context are the thin client hardware boxes that can display the desktops (and they may well enjoy a resurgence…although the counter argument is that desktop PCs have come down in price and up in features…so why bother?)

2. More importantly, is that if the level of performance for the user can actually be improved…maybe even on-demand (as Chuck alludes), then you’ve got a prescription for a serious revolution in desktop management and total cost of ownership. Especially in large organizations.

It’s no secret that managing desktops for users is a thankless task. Coupled with a never-ending hardware and operating system upgrade cycle, the endless security patching, and the poor track record of desktop backups, the VDI story gets interesting very fast.

For example, if you were fortunate to already have VDI deployed, it would be the fail-safe way to upgrade to Vista with the safety net that Enterprise customers want…specifically being able to fail back to their old (but working) XP desktops without having to physically touch all those desktops.

Of course, you’re going to want a lot of storage and more importantly, you’re going to want the tools that manage that storage well.

Virtualization