Executive Viewpoint: Harry Ruda, Desktone

By Harry Ruda
published: Monday, December 08 2008

Enterprises Get Virtual Desktops from the Cloud

2008 was the year that both desktop virtualization and cloud computing became top-of-mind for IT executives.  In 2009, these two technology approaches will come together, making headlines for the low-risk/high-reward way that they enable enterprises to make IT environments much more simple and agile, while meeting the cost savings goals that today's economic climate demands.  Let's look at why and how this is going to happen.

During the past year, it was fairly well-established that significant benefits are possible by implementing virtual desktops-namely, enhanced security and centralized management, which can lead to lower costs of servicing, managing and provisioning desktops to employees. But there's always been a critical constraint to virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI):  the front-end capital needed to buy and integrate the technologies to support the installation.  Even if amortized over time and across users, a TCO case has not been sufficiently made.  Deploying VDI internally has not been proven to save significant enough operating expense to warrant an implementation.

This cost barrier is becoming even greater as we move into 2009.  Companies are under extremely strict guidelines for what they can and can't spend.  Budgets are being slashed across the board and cash conservation is paramount.  As a result, despite VDI's advantages, VDI installations are exceedingly difficult to rationalize. 

Cloud computing can eradicate this barrier.  It is heralded for allowing users to access IT capabilities via the internet as a service, eliminating the need for specific in-house expertise and, perhaps more importantly, the need to purchase and maintain costly technology infrastructures. 

Let's face it.  The age of IT departments owning assets is over.  Now it's all about efficiency of operations and minimization of cost.  Cloud-based services make empirical sense if they can be delivered with assurances for performance, availability, security and cost-savings.  By putting virtual desktops in the cloud, enterprises can realize VDI's centralization and ease of management benefits, while offloading the cost of building VDI themselves.  With cloud-based virtual desktops, you can transfer desktop IT costs from a capital to an operating expense, and also dramatically reduce the ongoing operating expense of your desktops.

But the fact that VDI and cloud computing are viable and can be integrated doesn't portend that businesses will adopt them as a service.  What's changing and what's making this possible, as we enter the new year, is the availability of new enterprise-specific cloud offerings for desktop workloads.   Cloud-based services such as Google Apps and Amazon EC2 have been around for several years, but it is only now that the market is seeing services that are specifically architected to enable enterprise-scale virtual desktops as a service (DaaS), using a platform that enables service providers to manage highly scaled, multi-tenant environments, and that makes DaaS a financially feasible endeavor for service providers. 

In 2009, businesses around the world will be able to avail themselves of very cost-effective cloud-based desktop services from extremely reputable organizations, such as IBM, SoftBank, HP and Verizon. The fact that enterprises can reduce IT costs while getting reliable desktop services, and that service providers can make a profit on these offerings, will accelerate enterprise adoption of these services. Toward end of 2009 and into 2010, the same type of virtual desktop services in the cloud will be offered by mid-tier providers who will deliver them to the SMB market. Ultimately, perhaps in 2011, these desktop services will be delivered to consumers.But let's not get ahead of ourselves.Let's stay focused on 2009, when virtual desktops in the cloud will become a widely available, highly acceptable way of consuming and managing corporate IT resources.

Desktone

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