Delivering on the VDI promise

Tony Hiiliard: Virtual desktop solution offerings will change over the next year

Moving to virtual desktops has potential pitfalls and organisations must think carefully about how they will be managed.

Most VARs would have been involved in early desktop virtualisation pilots and seen firms move their PCs into the datacentre, only to find they are no easier to reach than ordinary Windows desktops.

Choosing the right management tool to handle both virtual and physical PCs will provide control of a company’s assets as well as ensuring security, manageability and availability of the virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) deployments, while reducing complexity.

Keep in mind that VDI is relatively nascent, so resellers will want to go with a vendor that has experience with centralised computing solutions as well as VDI.

The perceived wisdom is to consider a management tool from the larger brands that dominate the virtual desktop market, such as Citrix, VMware, Microsoft or HP. But VARs need to be shrewd about their choice of vendor. By opting for the obvious they could be locking their business into a particular solution. Will their recommendation of hardware and software commit their customers to a certain vendor, making it costly to move to other products or services?

This means resellers are faced with choosing between recommending an all-in-one solution
that does not lock them in to any one particular vendor, which in principle is less risky, or opting
for the big-name vendor. The answer is to choose the right solution for the customer ­ be knowledgeable and bold in your choice of virtualisation vendor.

Virtual desktop solution offerings will change significantly over the next year so it is best to avoid vendor lock-down and choose solutions that provide customers with flexibility in using a combination of integrated best-of-breed solutions.

Either way, as a trusted adviser, resellers are in a prime position to make virtualisation a success and it will be their informed advice that will help the channel deliver on the virtual desktop promise.

Tony Hiiliard is EMEA sales director at ClearCube.