Application Delivery – Discover Your Options

Overcome the challenges thrown up by traditional management of employee desktops. A tailored application delivery solution will reduce costs and deployment burdens, optimise performance and increase security.

“Desktop operations must learn to streamline management tasks, or they risk getting stuck in an endless game of catch up in which they are no longer able to effectively meet the needs of users or the business.“ Forrester Research

Application delivery is the future of desktop management. It is a combination of solutions that bridge that gap between users — regardless of location — and their applications, decoupling the computing environment, applications and data from underlying PC infrastructure.

With today’s virtualisation solutions, the end user is not even aware that it’s going on – they still get the same performance and flexibility they’re accustomed to on their desktop.

A range of options for different users

The key to application delivery’s success lies in identifying the specific needs of each user within the organisation, and assigning the right solutions to that user.

There are six ways that applications can be delivered to the desktop. Your organisation may adopt any number of these options, to meet the needs of different users at different times.

1. Hosted shared desktops

This provides a locked down, streamlined and standardised environment with a core set of applications, ideally suited for task workers where personalisation is not needed – or allowed. Users effectively share one configuration of a Windows Server desktop via independent sessions.

Supporting up to 500 users on a single server, which executes in the data centre, this model offers better utilisation of the operating system and significant cost savings over any other virtual desktop technology.

Who it suits: task workers (e.g. bank tellers, call centre staff, nurses)

2. Hosted VM-based desktops (VDI)

VDI offers a personalised Windows desktop experience, which can be securely delivered over any network to any device. It combines the benefits of central management with full user personalisation, giving users more flexibility in their choice of applications.

Running in the data centre, this option can generally support about 60-70 desktops per server.

Who it suits: office workers (e.g. finance, operations, administration)

3. Hosted blade PC

This niche option enables remote log-in to a Blade PC or server, which sits in the data centre, so that the high performance computing power is located centrally, as opposed to under a worker’s desk.

It offers all the benefits of centralisation, but ensures dedicated processing power for each user by hosting only one desktop per server. The Blade resource can be easily shared and secured.

Who it suits: workers who need high performance computing power (e.g. designers, CAD users, engineers, scientists)

4. Local streamed desktops

This option leverages the local processing power of rich clients, while providing centralised single-image management of the desktop to keep data centre overheads to a minimum. The entire desktop operating system is streamed to the client device from the data centre.

Desktop streaming enables you to leverage the CPU and RAM of the local PC for greater personalisation and flexibility – and also to capitalise on existing connections to peripheral devices – but it centralises the management of those desktops via a “provisioning server” in the data centre. A single server can generally support 200-300 users.

Who it suits: office workers, or government/university labs that use diskless PCs for maximum data security

5. Virtual applications and application streaming

This method involves encapsulating (or virtualising) an application configuration environment into a package or “bubble”, which can then be copied or streamed to the client device rather than installed. The operating system is still installed locally at the PC.

It simplifies application management and enables the concurrent running of multiple versions of a single application, or the running conflicting applications on the same desktop. It also offers many of the ROI and management benefits of a fully virtualised desktop with minimal setup costs, making it an ideal starting point. Streamed applications may also be used offline.

Who it suits: office workers, mobile workers

6. Local VM-based desktops

This model uses a client hypervisor to enable a centrally managed, virtual desktop to be taken offline.

This option extends the benefits of centralised, single-instance management to mobile workers that need to use their laptops offline. When they are able to connect to a suitable network, changes to the OS, apps and user data are automatically synchronised with the data centre.

Who it suits: mobile or remote users