Virtualization technology has hidden costs, but it offers plenty of opportunities for systems integrators and resellers who can help businesses upgrade their server and storage infrastructure, according to some industry experts.
“It’s a very complex market and customers that I’m speaking to – their heads are spinning trying to get this up and running,” said Natalie Lambert, senior analyst for desktop operations and architecture with Forrester Research Inc. of Cambridge, Mass.
“It’s not like a traditional desktop where you kind of plug it in and hope things work,” Lambert said. “This is changing the PC paradigm. It’s going to take customers time to grasp how to manage that environment.”
One major opportunity for resellers is providing additional storage to companies implementing virtualization, said Mike Fodor, vice-president of product management of Pano Logic Inc. The company this week announced Desktop Solution Version 2.0, which is available May 5. It works with VMWare software and uses the Pano Device.
“At this point we’re not targeting the home user who has to deal with their VPN client and all that,” Fodor said, adding the Pano Device acts as a gateway that connects a user’s keyboard and monitor, through an IP network, to a server.
“In a way, it also acts as an extension cord, bringing in all of those peripherals, all that user interaction allows you to stretch it over network,” Fodor said. “You can have Pano devices out there that have no software and those remote users can have the full Windows experience. IT can manage everything centrally because there’s no software, there’s no operating systems, there’s no driver in that remote office in that scenario. It’s the most cost-effective way for IT to support a remote office.”
Because the software lets remote offices use Windows applications without having any software on the desktops, customers may need to expand their data centres, Fodor said.
“It’s nice to go through integrator partners who can put all this together for end users customers,” he said. “There are all kinds of opportunities around storage, storage management, and then expanding out that back end server base. Additional VMWare, server licences, additional hardware and storage really are the main areas that there’s opportunities for systems integrators.”
Security is one selling point for Virtual Desktop Solution Version 2.0, he added.“The farther away that end user is from the central data centre, the harder it is to manage, the harder it is to control,” Fodor said. “We all know those USB thumb drives that you can put into PCs, as soon as you allow that and enable that, it’s really hard to keep track of any sort of data that’s been copied to them.
Lambert agreed security is one of the major benefits of virtualization, because data can be encrypted and backed up but housed on the server.
“If you look at data security and the idea that you will no longer have data out on your end points – this is a huge benefit to many organizations,” she said. “They can keep their data under lock and key.”
She recently co-authored a recent report, titled Demystifying Client Virtualization, which stated virtualizaion could be a silver bullet at companies running applications on Windows XP or Windows 2000 that are not compatible with Vista.
Microsoft Corp. plans to stop supporting Windows XP and is recommending users replace it with Vista. Lambert said a product like VMWare Thinstall may work well on Vista.
“What I think it really enables you to do is run your XP or your Windows 2000 applications on that Vista machine,” Lambert said. “The largest inhibitors to Vista adoption is that your applications simply aren’t compatible with the new OS.”
Lambert said many companies are considering installing virtualization products from companies like Citrix Systems or VMWare because they believe it will cut costs.
Although virtualization may cut management costs by 70 per cent, the cost of installing it includes more than just the licensing costs, she said.
“If you’re going to completely, 100 per cent switch over, you need to get rid of all your PCs, and bring in thin clients,” Lambert said. “You have to bring in big servers on the back and, and plan out, on average, between 10 and 20 virtual machines per server. You’re bringing in quite a few servers to get this solution up and running.”
She added another significant cost is the storage required. Because desktop virtualization brings all computing and applications to the server, each user needs between 10 and 30 GB of extra storage, Lambert said.
