(Endpoint) Virtualization is sexy

Virtualization is the new black. All your friends are talking about it. (At least if you have the same types of friends I do.)

Some of them are waiting to ‘try it on’, just hoping that they can find the size that fits in a style they can afford.

Your CEO has asked about it.

There are conferences, webcasts, seminars, blogs, websites, email blasts and brunch-and-learn events.

The new styles from VMware, Microsoft, Symantec and Citrix are gaining the attention of talk shows everywhere… and there are plenty of duplicators as companies everywhere try to ride the new wave of virtualization.

Do I want to be more specific? Probably a good idea.

We’ll use the term ‘virtualization’ in two ways: endpoint and server. If we keep with the fashion metaphor, we break it down into lines for men and lines for women.

We’ll say server virtualization is like men’s clothing lines. It’s serious, less risqué and easy to coordinate. You can figure out ahead of time what your savings will be.

Endpoint virtualization isn’t quite as easy to figure out… But the marketing machines are in overdrive. ‘Replace your thick client environment with a Virtual Desktop implementation that is just as robust but easier to manage’. ‘Save money!’ (how? – don’t worry about that) ‘Dynamically provision desktops.’ ‘Live Migration.’ That’s why it’s sexy. Cool marketing terms.

However, the ROI isn’t as obvious as it seems. It takes a lot more work.

The potential is there. And there is so much. If we use the Brian Madden (www.brianmadden.com) definition of Server Based Computing (SBC), we can further break endpoint virtualization into two further types: terminal server based and desktop virtualization (formerly Virtual Desktop Infrastructure). But terminal server based virtualization has been around too long to be trendy now.

So now we really get down to it. It is Desktop Virtualization that is sexy. It’s young. It’s hip. It’s the talk of the IT world. VMware View, Citrix XenDesktop, Microsoft VDI Suite, Red Hat Virtualization Manger for Desktops, SUN Virtual Desktop Infrastructure are all players with VMware and Citrix currently leading the chase.

But does it make real sense? Especially in the context of this blog that focuses on healthcare use cases?

Not yet, it’s not. Now there is a lot of potential, especially with all the competition driving both innovation and costs. This (competition) is the one thing the Terminal Server world has been missing by being dominated (really owned) by Citrix for the past 10-15 years.

But still, right now it has a couple things that make it lose its luster once you get a closer look.

1. It’s just too expensive. It requires a Storage Area Network (not a cheap investment) and the user density is just not where it needs to be to compete with a Terminal Server environment that now has application virtualization solutions like Symantec’s Workspace Virtualization or Microsoft’s App-V to help alleviate the application conflicts that Terminal Server has always been plagued with.
2. All the bugs haven’t been worked out. Getting VDI login times down to an acceptable level for healthcare just takes a lot of work. Especially since if you do it now, you are one of the trailblazers figuring it all out on your own instead of having the benefit of forums and white papers from your predecessors to draw from.
3. Right now it will probably take a bunch of 3^rd party solutions to stand it up. How to manage profiles, storage, logon scripts?
4. The strange thing is, and Brian Madden calls it “Madden’s Paradox”, is that by the time you get done securing a VDI environment, you lose most of the functionality you were looking for when you made the leap to Virtual Desktops in the first place. Terminal Server would have been just fine.

With all this and the fact that Terminal Server now has application virtualization help alleviate the application conflicts that Terminal Server has always been plagued with, and it is difficult to choose VDI over Terminal  Server for a healthcare use case in the short term.

Long Term for VDI? User densities need to go up, management tools need to get better, storage requirements need to decrease and 3^rd party vendor tools like AppSense will need to be integrated into VDI solutions.

And we’ll let someone else work out the bugs in their production environment….

Explore posts in the same categories: Barriers to eHR, clinical workflow, endpoint virtualization

Tags: Barriers to EMR, desktop virtualization, EHR, endpoint virtualization, healthcare use cases, SBC, VDI

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