Virtualization Strategies for the CIOInstalling and maintaining PC workstations for every employee in a company can be a time consuming and complex task for IT, but with desktop virtualization, or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), IT can deploy and manage thousands of desktop operating systems and applications on a central physical server quickly, securely and at lower cost.
VDI holds the promise of near-zero downtime in the event of hardware failures, reduced deployment costs, and the flexibility for end users to access their desktop from anywhere, but the technology has been slow to take off; fewer than 5 million PCs using the technology in 2006. But the benefits have become very clear, and by 2011, more than 660 million PCs will be deployed using VDI, according to Gartner.
Virtual desktop infrastructure
The top winners in this category are:
- Gold Award:
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RingCube Technologies vDesk 1.1
RingCube leads the way in this category because of its innovative features like flexible deployment, offline desktop, and no second OS license needed.
- Silver Award:
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MokaFive's LivePlayer, mobility, and centralized management make it a strong contender when choosing a desktop virtualization solution, judges said.
- Bronze Award:
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Citrix XenDesktop technology is strong because of all the surrounding Xen Infrastructure offerings that can be coupled with it and because of its open architecture.