Open IT Forum: Who is deploying desktop virtualization?
Desktop virtualization, Desktop Virtualization Implementation, Desktop virtualization software, Open IT Forum, Virtualization strategies
Are you deploying desktop virtualization in the enterprise? If not, why not? If so, what hardware and software are you using/do you recommend? Software/Hardware used:
ASKED:
January 5, 2011 5:58 PM
UPDATED:
January 11, 2011 8:51 PM
Answer Wiki:
We are deploying desktop virtualization in the enterprise. However we went through a process to identify the different types of roles of users in our organization and then based on that have selected certain roles such as the knowledge worker or the office worker role for desktop virtualization. Whereas roles such as the developer role at this point in time is not targeted for desktop virtualization. There are also the mobile worker role that desktop virtualization was not appropriate for either.
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Lets clear the concept of Hardware Virtualization, as far as my knowledge, it does mean Hardware Assisted Virtualization. Mostly HAV technologies are by Intel and AMD. They try to improve processor performance for virtualization viz. translating instructions & memory addresses. AMD virtualization is called AMD-V, and Intel virtualization is called as Intel VT. In real world, HAV not really so benefit if CPUs do not support it. For Hardware Virtualization, it is necessary to determine, if the cpu is ready for the same concept. I use “Securable” a free small tool, that helps to determine if the computer has hardware Virtualization capabilities. There is also need BIOS support in order to implement virtualization.
Software Virtualization means, end-users can run applications on network-connected devices that do not support the native operating system. The main focus of software virtualization is application stability.
Meanwhile, Virtualization is a self-healing technology, that denotes, that any changes made to applications or the operating system can be wiped clean at the server level, easily and cost-effectively.
For an example, if someone tries to run Windows XP inside Windows 7, then he/she requires first to check, either the computer has virtualization capabilities or not ! So for this purpose, it is necessary to download Hardware-Assisted Virtualization Detection Tool which does help to search that a CPU with support for hardware virtualization. Now run XP inside the Windows 7 PC, download and install Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode. The softwares which are absolutely free and I am using VMWare Player (Specially support for Windows and Linux guests). Though Sun Virtual Box is an excellent SW for desktop virtualizations. And one of the most benefit that, the both come on Windows / Linux and Mac also. Specially Virtual Box allows computers without hardware virtualization to easily run virtual machines while VMware Player offers fully integrated support for virtualization.
Thanks–
For desktop virtualization we have opted for the Session Virtualization approach (terminal services).
For this we are using a Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition OS on a Supermicro server.
We chose this approach because it requires less hardware than VDI.
our Co. in the testing stage as we have a lot of the legacy application
and it not possible to emulate some of the old hardware