SearchServerVirtualization.com - VMware, Wyse take on managed desktops
Alex Barrett, Executive Editor of Storage Media Group, does SVS right in this article. Alex explains application virtualization as it relates to Wyse running VMware virtual desktops on its terminals. This strategy gives IT managers another approach to desktop virtualization.
Here are a few of the Juicier bits:
Back at Wellspan, Defelice has found that SVS is a great way to manage the problem of incompatible versions of Microsoft Access. "We might have 60 to 70 different Access databases all created with different versions," Defelice said. "It's a real pain." Wellspan has virtualized several versions of Access, which it loads on to end users' PCs when they need to open an older database. "That way, we can be sure that databases associated with a particular version always get started up with the correct version."
Another Altiris SVS user, Mercy Health Services Inc. in Baltimore, has deployed SVS on all its 2,200 managed desktops and is experimenting with integrating SVS in to its Active Directory structure. This would allow an application to be activated and deactivated upon login, said Matt Giblin, Mercy senior director of engineering. "It becomes a good login licensing scheme," he said. "If an app is just loaded -- but not activated -- it's not taking up a license because [Windows] can't see it," he said.
In the long run, application virtualization may make a much deeper impression on the desktop than thin clients because it doesn't require the use of proprietary hardware. Like application virtualization today, thin computing of yore had as a mantra to "make the client system more flexible and secure," said Michael Dortch, principal business analyst and IT infrastructure management practice leader at the Robert Frances Group Inc. in Westport, Conn. "But the way to do it was never to take away existing hardware and replace it with something far less functional – that was never going to fly."