This presentation discusses some common questions about virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and was given at an event hosted by Sage Technology Group in Minnepolis, MN, on October 25, 2010.

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Questions About Virtual
Desktop Infrastructure
An informal discussion of VDI, where
it is today, and where it might be
headed

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Agenda
• Who am I?
• What’s driving VDI adoption?
• What are some of VDI’s challenges?
• How can we address the challenges of VDI?
• Where is VDI heading?
• What else would you like to know?

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What’s driving VDI
adoption?

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“In the middle of difficulty lies
opportunity.”
Albert Einstein

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Factors Pushing IT Orgs Toward VDI
• Windows 7 migrations
• Hardware refresh costs
• Operational complexity due
to client patching,
application deployments
and updates, hardware
“break and fix”
• Data confidentiality
• Backing up data on client
systems

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What are some of VDI’s
challenges?

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“We can’t solve problems by using
the same kind of thinking we used
when we created them.”
Albert Einstein

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Roadblocks Impeding VDI Deployments
• Business justification
• Understanding user requirements
• Infrastructure costs
– Endpoint cost and endpoint management
– Back-end infrastructure expenses, especially storage
• End user experience
• Operational challenges

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How can we address
the challenges of VDI?

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“Once we accept our limits, we go
beyond them. ”
Albert Einstein

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Potential Solutions to VDI’s Challenges
Challenge Potential Solution
End-user experience • New display protocols like PCoIP and HDX
• Hardware acceleration for display protocols
Compute density • Increasing CPU core count
• Expanded memory functionality
• Higher supported VM densities
Storage capacity and
performance
• Space-conservative desktop clones
• Intelligent storage tiering
• Deduplication of user data
Virtual desktop
protection
• Virtualization-optimized solutions such as vShield
Endpoint
• A/V offloading to storage arrays
Virtual desktop image
management
• Space-conservative desktop clones
• Application virtualization like ThinApp or App-V

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Where is VDI headed?

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“Imagination is everything. It is the
preview of life’s coming attractions. ”
Albert Einstein

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Future Directions for VDI
• New form factors are
revitalizing interest in VDI
iPad photo courtesy of Apple, Inc.
• Client hypervisors could
reshape how we view
desktop virtualization

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What else would you
like to know?

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THANK YOU