Enterprise data centres have traditionally used servers and storage that typically scale only to a few nodes. Even small capacity or performance scales required large installation increments or worse, required replicating the existing IT infrastructure, which is prohibitive in terms of cost and space. An important impediment was that as storage capacity increased, system performance and efficiency suffered. In addition, IT budgets came under pressure and created high entry barriers to scale for enterprise class data centres. However, virtualization and cloud platforms are changing that. IT departments can now linearly scale to several server and storage nodes rapidly, for capacity and performance without compromising on efficiency and to keep costs under control. This helps save space via hardware consolidation, improves productivity, and derives a competitive advantage through increased availability, lean administration, and fast deployment times.
Corporate-training-for-msbi-course-in-mumbaiUnmesh Baile
Vibrant Technologies is headquarted in Mumbai,India.We are the best MSBI training provider in Navi Mumbai who provides Live Projects to students.We provide Corporate Training also.We are Best Microsoft Business Intelligence classes in Mumbai according to our students and corporators
Improve software development project success with better informationBill Duncan
Summary: Automated reporting can help you document compliance and eliminate the errors, inconsistency, and wasted time and effort inherent in manual reporting. Automated measurement can help improve processes and streamline project delivery. This article describes how automated reporting and measurement tools, such as IBM Rational Publishing Engine and Rational Insight, help software and systems development teams provide accurate, timely, and appropriate information to decision makers.
Enterprise data centres have traditionally used servers and storage that typically scale only to a few nodes. Even small capacity or performance scales required large installation increments or worse, required replicating the existing IT infrastructure, which is prohibitive in terms of cost and space. An important impediment was that as storage capacity increased, system performance and efficiency suffered. In addition, IT budgets came under pressure and created high entry barriers to scale for enterprise class data centres. However, virtualization and cloud platforms are changing that. IT departments can now linearly scale to several server and storage nodes rapidly, for capacity and performance without compromising on efficiency and to keep costs under control. This helps save space via hardware consolidation, improves productivity, and derives a competitive advantage through increased availability, lean administration, and fast deployment times.
Corporate-training-for-msbi-course-in-mumbaiUnmesh Baile
Vibrant Technologies is headquarted in Mumbai,India.We are the best MSBI training provider in Navi Mumbai who provides Live Projects to students.We provide Corporate Training also.We are Best Microsoft Business Intelligence classes in Mumbai according to our students and corporators
Improve software development project success with better informationBill Duncan
Summary: Automated reporting can help you document compliance and eliminate the errors, inconsistency, and wasted time and effort inherent in manual reporting. Automated measurement can help improve processes and streamline project delivery. This article describes how automated reporting and measurement tools, such as IBM Rational Publishing Engine and Rational Insight, help software and systems development teams provide accurate, timely, and appropriate information to decision makers.
Claims Manager® delivers workers compensation software, insurance claims software and comprehensive claims management all in a seamless connection to policy administration.
Robust, intuitive, and analytical, Claims Manager® drives superior claims data management and delivers optimum claims processing.
Claims Manager® comes with:
• All-in-one browser-based application
• Fully automated electronic accounts reconciliation
• Easy analysis of critical insurance data of most lines of business, including workers compensation, property, casualty, commercial auto and more
• Intuitive interface that increases productivity and shortens the learning curve
• The most flexibility available in an out-of-the-box solution
See all the ways Claims Manager® can power your claims management process- http://www.jdidata.com
Today's workplace is rapidly changing. Workers are increasingly mobile. Over 52% of employees carry at least three devices for work, and may bring their own devices to and from work, a practice know as bring your own device (BYOD). These workplace dynamics have created IT challenges around data security and compliance, cost containment,and endpoint/image management.
Salesforce Lightning Process Builder IS the next-generation workflow toolBMC Software
Providing added flexibility and more power, combining what would have been multiple workflow rules into a SINGLE process. Salesforce Lightning Process Builder is a point and click graphical interface that provides a canvas for administrators to quickly and easily create workflow that used to require complex Apex coding. It has opened the door for administrators to design straightforward workflow that can create and/or update related records, including child records.
I am Pradip Chakraborty. A professional artist. This is my art profile 2015. Here you can see my illustrations, comics, cartoon, design, painting, animation works link and lots more. I hope everybody will like it.
Claims Manager® delivers workers compensation software, insurance claims software and comprehensive claims management all in a seamless connection to policy administration.
Robust, intuitive, and analytical, Claims Manager® drives superior claims data management and delivers optimum claims processing.
Claims Manager® comes with:
• All-in-one browser-based application
• Fully automated electronic accounts reconciliation
• Easy analysis of critical insurance data of most lines of business, including workers compensation, property, casualty, commercial auto and more
• Intuitive interface that increases productivity and shortens the learning curve
• The most flexibility available in an out-of-the-box solution
See all the ways Claims Manager® can power your claims management process- http://www.jdidata.com
Today's workplace is rapidly changing. Workers are increasingly mobile. Over 52% of employees carry at least three devices for work, and may bring their own devices to and from work, a practice know as bring your own device (BYOD). These workplace dynamics have created IT challenges around data security and compliance, cost containment,and endpoint/image management.
Salesforce Lightning Process Builder IS the next-generation workflow toolBMC Software
Providing added flexibility and more power, combining what would have been multiple workflow rules into a SINGLE process. Salesforce Lightning Process Builder is a point and click graphical interface that provides a canvas for administrators to quickly and easily create workflow that used to require complex Apex coding. It has opened the door for administrators to design straightforward workflow that can create and/or update related records, including child records.
I am Pradip Chakraborty. A professional artist. This is my art profile 2015. Here you can see my illustrations, comics, cartoon, design, painting, animation works link and lots more. I hope everybody will like it.
College Students Say the Darnedest ThingsAndy Carswell
This is a tongue-in-cheek presentation that is given to some of my classes at the very beginning of the semester. The presentation basically addresses some of the most consistently asked questions and statements by students that educators face from students, and serves as a good ice-breaker for students with whom I am not familiar. While being barraged by such statements/questions can get tedious over time, the author provides some (hopefully) helpful responses that when applied consistently across classrooms and cohort groups, can inject a little bit of common sense and a reality check to students when necessary. For veterans of the classroom, these statements/questions have all been heard before. For new professors/educators, this is a primer on just some of the things that you can expect students to ask/say over time...sometimes again and again. Cover art work by Ross Schmidt.
Designing End-User Experience for Workplace of the Futurestevej7699
This whitepaper highlights how enterprises can use virtualization technologies to design and deliver superior end-user experience for Workplaces of the Future.
Automating Application Virtualization with AdminStudio Suite from Flexera Sof...Flexera
AdminStudio® Suite improves application lifecycle management with application virtualization, enabling organizations to remove blockers and transition to user-centric and cloud computing faster and with more consistent results.
Desktop Virtualization: Reduce Costs, Improve Efficiencies with Proven VDI So...Citrix
This whitepaper busts myths and describes how VDI has proven to be successful—providing positive outcomes for IT and employees, addressing security vulnerabilities, and delivering favorable economics back to the business.
Today, employees expect the corporate applications and data to be available to them on anywhere anytime basis. However, tightening of the corporate budgets is forcing IT to reduce operational cost while balancing employee and compliance needs. These business drivers are forcing organization to think new innovative way for redefining their traditional desktop environment.
The Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) approach is one the key aspect to meet the demanding business needs and hence VDI technology adoption has been clearly defined on the IT roadmap of many organizations.
The Citrix Virtual Desktop Handbook examines the project lifecycle for a desktop virtualization project.
The Handbook provides the methodology, experience and best practices needed to successfully design your own desktop virtualization solution
https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX136546
How Can Your Organization Benefit From Application Modernization_.pdfAnil
Application modernization refers to the process of updating or transforming legacy software applications to make them more contemporary, efficient, and aligned with current business needs and technology trends. Adopting application modernization can bring several benefits to an organization
Running Head VIRTUALIZATION 1VIRTUALIZATION 1Virt.docxrtodd599
Running Head: VIRTUALIZATION
1
VIRTUALIZATION
1
Virtualization
Janella Lawton
September 7, 2018
Dr. Reddy Urimindi
CIS 512
Virtualization
Information technology systems are growing, and their use is increasing significantly in many technology organizations. An example of an IT technology that is heavily embraced by organizations is virtualization. This technology involves the development of a virtual rather than an actual representation of the version of the product such as a server, operating system, a network resource system and a device for storing data. Virtualization allows the user to operate more servers as well as multiple applications which significantly improves the efficiency of data centers. It becomes easy to deploy workloads in a faster more convenient way which increases opportunities and automating operations. This makes the daily operations smooth and easy to manage. Also, the cost of running operations is reduced as you operate these activities. The key characteristics of virtualization include; Isolation, encapsulation, hardware independence and partitioning. The software can divide the resources and the system between the identified virtual systems (Bull & Matthews, 2016). The performance of organizations can be preserved using more advanced and updated resources controls. Information technology management for business has improved business operations and creates opportunities through server virtualization.
Top Three Brands of Virtualization Software Available
The main reason most businesses are embracing virtualization is due to consolidations. These are very effective strategies that allow the business managers to stretch the server to its maximum capacity using the installation of different types of software on one unit of hardware. Another remarkable reason that business managers go for virtualization for their IT departments is that a virtual machine enhances technology in an energy efficient way compared to the dedicated servers. Also, too many virtual servers can be chosen rather than having too many dedicated servers which will still save the operational cost by being energy efficient.
The first virtual software available in the market and used by the information technology departments of businesses is VMware which is supported by their vSphere/ESXi.The product comes in different packages of free editions and that of five commercial editions. VMwaredominated the business market when it designed innovative features like the Storage vMotion, vMotion, memory overcommitment and Fault Tolerance (Lee, 2014). VSphere allows its users to virtualize applications that can operate on stronger computers and applications that can operate on any regular computers.
The second virtual software that is available in the market for businesses is Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V. This software always emerges among the top three competing with vSphere and XenServer. This software offers clients a reliable and flex.
Today, Federal IT faces some of the largest challenges seen in decades. Funding cuts, new & complex technologies and government mandates to virtualize, consolidate and move to the cloud have put even greater pressure on CIOs and IT staffs. As the government struggles with modernization and moves forward with such projects as VDI, Storage Virtualization, Data Center Consolidation and Cloud architecture; three of the most important things to consider are how to guarantee success, reduce risk and drive costs down. An emerging technology category, Infrastructure Performance Management (IPM), offers the unique ability deliver dramatic and comprehensive analysis of the physical, virtual and cloud components of any data center environment. The enterprise class data center has traditionally been one of the highest spend areas of Federal IT in addition to being highly complex, technically siloed, plagued with performance issues, and lacking true system-wide visibility.
As the leader in IPM, Virtual Instruments offers the industry's only real-time capability to uncover performance, health and utilization issues in the open systems storage environment. Failure to have real-time situational awareness can prevent mission success, increase operational risk and drive up costs. Beyond being an incredibly effective troubleshooting platform, our technology is helping 1/3 of the Fortune 100 (and several government agencies) cut IT costs by precisely identifying areas for optimization, performance tuning and cost savings. Our customers are able to stop over-spending & over-provisioning their storage environments, decrease SAN switch ports, and gain highly efficient & cost effective performance for the most mission critical applications.
The OpenText™ AppWorks™ Platform is the ideal solution to build new business applications and new business processes faster and in a simplified way. The solution leverages prior investments in enterprise software and legacy systems to bring together all existing IT assets and empowers the organization with the ability to monitor the entire enterprise under one platform.
7 Long Term Benefits of Virtual Desktops for Emerging BusinessesvDesk.Works
The virtual desktop has gone from experimental technology to a mainstream computing solution over the past several years. Its time has come and it is now utilized by businesses around the world as a means of streamlining workflows and creating better, more cost-effective end user experiences. So what exactly makes virtual desktops such an invaluable tool for new businesses?
Get a Complete View of Your Business Services and IT Estate in ServiceNow wit...Flexera
Context is Critical to IT and an Accurate CMDB is Vital to Context
A near-real time accurate CMDB is an important requirement but a major challenge for modern IT organizations. Bad and missing data can significantly impact the business and result in business impacting service outages, increased business risk and exposure to security threats.
ServiceNow provides the essential management and big picture visibility that is crucial to an effective CMDB. And Flexera | RISC Networks provides detailed discovery data, context and analysis to push into your ServiceNow instance, making the picture of the current state accurate and contextually relevant.
10 Tips to Optimize, Automate, and Govern your Hybrid IT EnvironmentFlexera
Join our webinar for 10 tips to help you manage your hybrid environment, erase waste from your IT spend and reallocate spend to critical initiatives – enhancing your bottom line and accelerating your company.
Using Automated Policies for SaaS Governance and ComplianceFlexera
Learn to use automated SaaS policies to enforce governance and compliance, including unsanctioned spend alerts, detecting suspicious user activity, onboarding and offboarding, and detecting inactive user accounts.
The Practical Approach for End-to-End SaaS ManagementFlexera
Watch this webinar and get the answers to help you learn to effectively manage software-as-a-service. Learn to optimize SaaS spend, manage multiple vendors and their pricing models, and right-size contracts with detailed usage and cost data.
7 Things You Need to Know for Your Cloud-First StrategyFlexera
One of your top priorities is implementing a cloud-first strategy. Learn to make the shift as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible. Watch this webinar and learn the best practices for cloud migration, optimization, governance and automation.
The Role of In-House & External Counsel in Managing Open Source SoftwareFlexera
Amy Chun, Partner at Knobbe Martens and Marty Mellican, VP & Associate General Counsel at Flexera discuss the role of in-house counsel to better manage any potential legal risks that might be inherent with OSS use.
Addressing Open Source Risks During M&A: A Legal ViewFlexera
Amy Chun, Partner at Knobbe Martens and Marty Mellican, VP & Associate General Counsel at Flexera discuss why a carefully planned audit of open source should be part of every due diligence effort.
Having Trouble Managing All Your Cloud Services? We Know!Flexera
Most businesses have at least 3 or more cloud services, and it’s hard enough to control spend for just one. That’s why Flexera acquired RightScale, the leading multi-cloud management provider. With cloud services making up 20% of most IT budgets, the spend optimization stakes are high. This year’s Rightscale State Of The Cloud report shows that up to 35% of cloud services spend may be wasted.
View these slides to see how RightScale Optima helps you find that 35% and act on it.
Webinar: Maximizing the ROI of IT by Simplifying Technology ComplexityFlexera
View this webinar with Forrester analyst Charlie Betz and Forrester consultant Stephen Odell, as they present the detailed findings of their study. After the webinar, you will have a better understanding of the benefits of Flexera Data Platform.
Webinar: What's New In FlexNet Manager Suite 2018 R1Flexera
Learn about the new features in FlexNet Manager Suite for Enterprises 2018, which brings new capabilities to extend Flexera's leadership in Software Asset Management.
Software Distribution, Customer Experience and the IoT: Get Ready for Fast, S...Flexera
There’s no second chance to make a first impression! Are your software upgrades making a good impression on your customers? Are your software delivery processes fast, scalable, and secure?
Join Forrester Principal Analyst David Johnson, Akamai and Flexera as they discuss what modern electronic software delivery processes should look like in this rapidly growing IoT world.
Fast!
No one likes to wait. Learn how a robust software delivery solution gets software and updates out to customers – without the wait.
Scalable!
File sizes and cadence of updates are faster than ever. Intelligent devices defy conventional software distribution models. Hear what you can do to keep up.
Secure!
Security has many aspects – where do you focus? Discover how to deliver your software in a secure way and only to those entitled to receive it.
Windows 10 webinar: What’s new for IT pros Windows 10 v 1709Flexera
Join Microsoft's Iris Fang and Nick Moseley, Technical Solutions Professionals, for an overview of the new business-friendly features coming in the Windows 10 Update 1709. Whether you have already migrated to Windows 10 and are planning for the upgrade, or preparing to migrate from Windows 7 to The Fall Creators update, this webinar will review what enterprises can expect in the new release.
Don’t Let Hackers Breach Your Data: Shutting Your Risk Window on Apache Struts2Flexera
Cyber-criminals target these known vulnerabilities in both commercial and open source software. Many organizations are either unaware of what’s in their software or take too long to patch their systems. These gaps lead to ignorance of known vulnerabilities and/or a lack of efficient processes to apply critical patches quickly.
Watch this webinar on understanding these gaps, closing the risk window and reducing your risk of a breach. Find out how vulnerable code can be easy to discover and patch.
Announcing the availability of the largest and most comprehensive repository of technology asset data on the planet. Current and constantly curated. Available on the software industry’s first open platform for this data. It’s about time.
Webinar: Take Proactive Control of Your SAP Licensing, Indirect Usage and Ven...Flexera
Join UpperEdge and Flexera in this webinar to learn the importance of getting more proactive control of your SAP relationship to drive predictable outcomes and increased value.
Keeping a Lid on Costs for Cloud Infrastructure and SaaS ApplicationsFlexera
Join us for this webinar as we discuss the spend management risks associated with cloud services and some of the strategies organizations can use to keep a lid on these costs using Software Asset Management processes and tools. We’ll use Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Office 365 as specific examples of cloud infrastructure services and SaaS applications, respectively, that can be managed for better cost efficiency.
Do You Manage Software? Understanding Your Role in Cybersecurity DefenseFlexera
Organizations are under constant attack by hackers targeting applications used by the business. The University of Maryland recently quantified the near-constant rate of attacks on computers with Internet access to every 39 seconds. The best defense requires a holistic approach and collaboration of different teams in a concerted effort to reduce the attack surface for hackers. In this webinar we will discuss the roles and the impact that activities, not always associated with security, have in reducing risk. Whether you are an asset manager, a desktop or datacenter manager, or an IT security professional, your role has a significant impact on your organizations ability to reduce the risk of cyber-attack.
Transcript: Selling digital books in 2024: Insights from industry leaders - T...BookNet Canada
The publishing industry has been selling digital audiobooks and ebooks for over a decade and has found its groove. What’s changed? What has stayed the same? Where do we go from here? Join a group of leading sales peers from across the industry for a conversation about the lessons learned since the popularization of digital books, best practices, digital book supply chain management, and more.
Link to video recording: https://bnctechforum.ca/sessions/selling-digital-books-in-2024-insights-from-industry-leaders/
Presented by BookNet Canada on May 28, 2024, with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.
Dev Dives: Train smarter, not harder – active learning and UiPath LLMs for do...UiPathCommunity
💥 Speed, accuracy, and scaling – discover the superpowers of GenAI in action with UiPath Document Understanding and Communications Mining™:
See how to accelerate model training and optimize model performance with active learning
Learn about the latest enhancements to out-of-the-box document processing – with little to no training required
Get an exclusive demo of the new family of UiPath LLMs – GenAI models specialized for processing different types of documents and messages
This is a hands-on session specifically designed for automation developers and AI enthusiasts seeking to enhance their knowledge in leveraging the latest intelligent document processing capabilities offered by UiPath.
Speakers:
👨🏫 Andras Palfi, Senior Product Manager, UiPath
👩🏫 Lenka Dulovicova, Product Program Manager, UiPath
Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey 2024 by 91mobiles.pdf91mobiles
91mobiles recently conducted a Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey in which we asked over 3,000 respondents about the TV they own, aspects they look at on a new TV, and their TV buying preferences.
Accelerate your Kubernetes clusters with Varnish CachingThijs Feryn
A presentation about the usage and availability of Varnish on Kubernetes. This talk explores the capabilities of Varnish caching and shows how to use the Varnish Helm chart to deploy it to Kubernetes.
This presentation was delivered at K8SUG Singapore. See https://feryn.eu/presentations/accelerate-your-kubernetes-clusters-with-varnish-caching-k8sug-singapore-28-2024 for more details.
Key Trends Shaping the Future of Infrastructure.pdfCheryl Hung
Keynote at DIGIT West Expo, Glasgow on 29 May 2024.
Cheryl Hung, ochery.com
Sr Director, Infrastructure Ecosystem, Arm.
The key trends across hardware, cloud and open-source; exploring how these areas are likely to mature and develop over the short and long-term, and then considering how organisations can position themselves to adapt and thrive.
Builder.ai Founder Sachin Dev Duggal's Strategic Approach to Create an Innova...Ramesh Iyer
In today's fast-changing business world, Companies that adapt and embrace new ideas often need help to keep up with the competition. However, fostering a culture of innovation takes much work. It takes vision, leadership and willingness to take risks in the right proportion. Sachin Dev Duggal, co-founder of Builder.ai, has perfected the art of this balance, creating a company culture where creativity and growth are nurtured at each stage.
PHP Frameworks: I want to break free (IPC Berlin 2024)Ralf Eggert
In this presentation, we examine the challenges and limitations of relying too heavily on PHP frameworks in web development. We discuss the history of PHP and its frameworks to understand how this dependence has evolved. The focus will be on providing concrete tips and strategies to reduce reliance on these frameworks, based on real-world examples and practical considerations. The goal is to equip developers with the skills and knowledge to create more flexible and future-proof web applications. We'll explore the importance of maintaining autonomy in a rapidly changing tech landscape and how to make informed decisions in PHP development.
This talk is aimed at encouraging a more independent approach to using PHP frameworks, moving towards a more flexible and future-proof approach to PHP development.
Slack (or Teams) Automation for Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Soluti...Jeffrey Haguewood
Sidekick Solutions uses Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Solutions Apricot) and automation solutions to integrate data for business workflows.
We believe integration and automation are essential to user experience and the promise of efficient work through technology. Automation is the critical ingredient to realizing that full vision. We develop integration products and services for Bonterra Case Management software to support the deployment of automations for a variety of use cases.
This video focuses on the notifications, alerts, and approval requests using Slack for Bonterra Impact Management. The solutions covered in this webinar can also be deployed for Microsoft Teams.
Interested in deploying notification automations for Bonterra Impact Management? Contact us at sales@sidekicksolutionsllc.com to discuss next steps.
Kubernetes & AI - Beauty and the Beast !?! @KCD Istanbul 2024Tobias Schneck
As AI technology is pushing into IT I was wondering myself, as an “infrastructure container kubernetes guy”, how get this fancy AI technology get managed from an infrastructure operational view? Is it possible to apply our lovely cloud native principals as well? What benefit’s both technologies could bring to each other?
Let me take this questions and provide you a short journey through existing deployment models and use cases for AI software. On practical examples, we discuss what cloud/on-premise strategy we may need for applying it to our own infrastructure to get it to work from an enterprise perspective. I want to give an overview about infrastructure requirements and technologies, what could be beneficial or limiting your AI use cases in an enterprise environment. An interactive Demo will give you some insides, what approaches I got already working for real.
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
Connector Corner: Automate dynamic content and events by pushing a buttonDianaGray10
Here is something new! In our next Connector Corner webinar, we will demonstrate how you can use a single workflow to:
Create a campaign using Mailchimp with merge tags/fields
Send an interactive Slack channel message (using buttons)
Have the message received by managers and peers along with a test email for review
But there’s more:
In a second workflow supporting the same use case, you’ll see:
Your campaign sent to target colleagues for approval
If the “Approve” button is clicked, a Jira/Zendesk ticket is created for the marketing design team
But—if the “Reject” button is pushed, colleagues will be alerted via Slack message
Join us to learn more about this new, human-in-the-loop capability, brought to you by Integration Service connectors.
And...
Speakers:
Akshay Agnihotri, Product Manager
Charlie Greenberg, Host
Connector Corner: Automate dynamic content and events by pushing a button
Virtual Desktops for the Enterprise
1. WHITEPAPER
Virtual Desktops for the Enterprise
Successful Strategies to Guide Project Planning and Decision-Making
Using AdminStudio Virtual Desktop Assessment
2. Virtual Desktops for the Enterprise
2
Virtual Desktops for the Enterprise
Successful Strategies to Guide Project Planning and Decision-Making
Using AdminStudio Virtual Desktop Assessment
Virtual Desktops for the Enterprise
The enterprise desktop has evolved from a singular concept
of hardware, software, and operating system, into a
comprehensive solution of technologies. Today’s users
require a flexible work environment wherever they are, on
any device, and with the same personalized and consistent
experience they are used to on a traditional desktop. This
increased demand for desktop virtualization originated from
the consumerization of IT, additional security and regulatory
compliance requirements, blending of work lifestyles, and
an increased scrutiny of IT spending. Based on these
needs, software and hardware companies responded by
creating new technologies and merging them with existing
technologies to develop virtual desktops available to
users wherever they need them and on any device while
maintaining security, manageability, and cost-effectiveness.
The desktop of today is a combination of traditional and
virtual desktops. In this new model, the desktop is separated
into individual layers (operating system, applications, and
data), transforming these layers into resources that can
be combined to meet the needs of users, wherever they
choose to work and on whatever device they are using.
Virtual desktop solutions incorporate a combination of
server-hosted, session-hosted, and client-hosted desktops,
all with application virtualization, user data, and settings
management.
These solutions require software, hardware, and resource
time to build and maintain, all of which have associated
costs. At the same time, organizations are reducing their
spending, which means virtual desktop implementation must
be done correctly the first time. Companies experience
challenges deploying virtual desktop solutions due to a
variety of factors including insufficient knowledge required
for deploying the combination of technologies, lack of
internal experience and data supporting planning and
implementation, and limited industry guidance across the
supporting technologies.
Beginning a Successful Virtual Desktop Solution
Successful virtual desktop projects begin by identifying
which technologies should be utilized for each category
of user and mapping their required desktop features.
The cost difference between implementing 1000 VDI
desktops versus Session-based desktops is quite large.
However, implementing Session-based desktops that do
not support users’ needs, although initially less costly, will
potentially reduce user productivity, and present a poor
user experience when targeted at the wrong group of users.
Current inventory tools are built around asset compliance
and do not typically record the data needed to decide
which technologies represent the best long-term strategy. In
order to make informed planning decisions, IT needs usage
and consumption data of targeted desktop resources and
features analyzed into consumable reports.
Since virtual desktops are required to support businesses
today, companies are striving for successful deployments.
However, companies are also struggling to understand what
defines a successful deployment. Successful virtual desktop
solutions take into account users, desktop management, and
applications; the primary factors that have a high impact
on solution development. Users want a rich computing
environment available anywhere they are, through a wide
range of devices, without compromise. Virtualization has
greatly improved the manageability of desktops but has not
eliminated management requirements. Applications enable
user productivity, and application virtualization can be
utilized to improve flexibility and reduce delivery complexity
and costs in a virtual desktop solution.
Users
A typical user expects any upgrades or new technology to
maintain the performance level of their previous desktop
incarnation. An extremely manageable virtual desktop
may be beneficial to IT, but if the upgrades cause markedly
slower application start times, they will not be well received
by users. However, most companies do not have data
3. Virtual Desktops for the Enterprise
3
detailing their users’ current expectations. Without data
for comparison, IT may unknowingly implement a solution
resulting in low levels of user satisfaction and productivity.
Poor user experiences and a lack of understanding of the
before and after states are two of the primary reasons why
past implementations of VDI and virtualization have failed.
On the other hand, a solution may provide users with the
same or better performance than previous desktop solutions
but may prove out of budget or out of scope of the current
resources for management.
Management
One of the primary reasons organizations look toward
virtual desktops is the perceived reduction of management
costs. Although cost reduction is a benefit, it only occurs
with proper virtual desktop implementation. Moving
the desktops from the endpoints to the datacenter
centralizes management efforts with a reduction in
desktop management, but at the same time, it increases
management needs with the addition of infrastructure.
The current technologies for virtual desktops provide
benefits for managing the desktop in a server infrastructure,
but still require combination with traditional desktop
management solutions.
Applications
Applications are the core drivers of user productivity.
Improving the management lifecycle of applications has a
positive impact on productivity whether utilizing traditional
or virtual desktops. Virtual applications provide many
benefits throughout the lifecycle, including packaging,
delivery, support, compatibility, and termination.
Separating applications from the desktop with application
virtualization enables a more flexible and supportable
delivery model for both traditional and virtual desktops.
Virtual applications enable flexible delivery, as applications
are not installed on the desktop (virtual or traditional) which
reduces the deployment efforts and overall support costs.
Realizing benefits from application virtualization
technologies requires packaging the applications into the
new format. Currently, companies are invested heavily
in their existing packaging processes, which may range
from manual installation, scripting, or full MSI deployment.
In order to package applications into the new format,
the current application catalog must be inventoried and
rationalized. Rationalizing the application catalog will
reduce the number of applications requiring conversion
into virtual formats. Next comes converting the
applications from the current format into an application
virtualization format.
The result of application virtualization for virtual desktops
is a resource delivered to, but not installed on, any type
of desktop (traditional, session, or VDI) from one common
package. Application virtualization enables the packaging
team to create a single package across all endpoints from
one process while providing a reduction in support costs
associated with application conflicts due to the isolation
in application virtualization. During the planning process
of virtual desktops, application virtualization should be
considered as a solution for application management in the
transformed desktop.
Virtual Desktop Assessment
Assessing an organization’s current environment and
providing guidance in planning and implementing virtual
desktops is critical to choosing the correct technologies
that will shape the desktop in the future. Currently, most
companies work with individual vendors to try out their
specific piece(s) of the virtual desktop stack, which requires
resource time to evaluate each technology and then
combine the results to meet the organization’s specific
needs and processes with limited or no guidance.
Flexera Software®
created a complete, vendor-agnostic
assessment tool called AdminStudio®
Virtual Desktop
Assessment that enables administrators to capture the data
required to make decisions when selecting virtual desktop
technologies. Flexera Software has a deep desktop history
with their solutions for application readiness, including
MSI and application virtualization packaging, self-service
software delivery with App Portal, testing and compliance
with Workflow Manager, as well as software licensing,
entitlement management, and delivery of applications.
Flexera Software’s desktop knowledge translates to advantages
for organizations from business decision makers to IT
administrators understanding the operating system, application
usage, and user consumption critical for making decisions
prior to capital expenditures and resource allocation.
Features of AdminStudio Virtual Desktop Assessment
AdminStudio Virtual Desktop Assessment enables
organizations to make informed decisions when planning
a virtual desktop solution strategy, whether the strategy
includes Microsoft®
, VMware®
, Citrix®
, Symantec™, or
Quest®
, by capturing and analyzing critical data into
actionable reports suited for each part of the project.
The results are a well-designed infrastructure that will
ensure high-levels of user satisfaction while minimizing
management efforts and overall costs.
Capture Virtual Desktop Readiness
Virtual Desktop Assessment captures an accurate and
comprehensive picture of virtual desktop readiness by
collecting inventory that includes hardware resources (CPU,
RAM, storage, disk I/O, graphics, IOPs, and externally
attached devices) used by each application and the usage
profile of each application, including user count, load
time, and total use time. Administrators can tailor Virtual
Desktop Assessment by specifying which computers, users,
and applications to assess, from the entire company as a
whole, or a subset of targeted virtual desktop candidates.
They can specify the timeline, from a short time window to
track peak usage, to a longer timeframe to capture trending
information, and send the data collected to a central
location for analysis and reporting that captures important
usage information for the organization.
4. Virtual Desktops for the Enterprise
4
The data capture is performed by a lightweight agent on
the selected desktops targeted by the Profile Collector.
The agent runs completely in the background, utilizing
minimal resources and unnoticed by users during the
monitoring process. The agent sends data to the Virtual
Desktop Assessment Manager, which is available as a
virtual appliance for most hypervisors, or it can be installed
locally. Administrators can tailor the assessment for their
environment, specifying not only the “what” — that is,
which computers, users and applications to assess —
but also the “when.” They can specify a sample that
accurately represents the environment or they can monitor
all computers, users and applications. Administrators can
specify the timeframe, which typically runs from two weeks
to 30 days, and can even configure the agent to uninstall
after the monitoring period, eliminating the manual effort
of removing agents. The results can be exported and reports
are available from a high-level view, mid-level analysis
model, and low-level granular view.
Figure 1: Assessment Dashboard
5. Virtual Desktops for the Enterprise
5
Perform analysis
After the data is collected, Virtual Desktop Assessment
analyzes and reports inventory of computers including
attached devices and application usage (count, load time,
and total use), as well as required services and drivers
for each application. Flexera Software Virtual Desktop
Assessment creates a profile for each user/computer. The
profile provides easy to use information for each profile’s
virtualization suitability by using simple color codes, from
green (good candidate), to yellow (fair candidate), to red
(poor candidate). The suitability ratings are based on factors
ranging from consumption of memory, storage and other
resources to performance requirements and infrastructure
limitations, and allow for custom weighting for specific
needs of the organization or business units.
The Virtual Desktop Assessment analysis provides insight into
the effort required to migrate specific users based on the
complexity of their desktop environment (specific hardware
requirements) and maps the identified categories of user/
desktop with the best-fit virtual desktop technologies.
Virtual Desktop Assessment analysis also provides data
on infrastructure capacity (aggregated CPU time, RAM
requirements, storage volume and I/O load) enabling right-
sized hardware purchases to reduce company spending for
virtual desktops.
The Virtual Desktop Assessment analysis enables IT to select
which technologies fit (e.g. XenDesktop™ vs XenApp™)
and to perform capacity planning, which ensures right-sized
spending on the appropriate supporting technologies, both
hardware and software. IT can also accurately estimate the
resources necessary for areas that require more attention,
from pilot to production. Performing a one-time analysis
that identifies specific technologies across virtual desktops
eliminating running multiple Proof-of-Concepts or testing
that requires resource time and dedicated hardware to
support. Companies need an understanding of what specific
solutions will cost prior to making hardware and software
purchases for testing, pilot programs, and production, and
before providing training on each technology.
Combining Flexera Software’s AdminStudio Virtual
Desktop Assessment and AdminStudio Virtualization Pack
enables organizations to evaluate needs and automate
the conversion of applications to virtual applications.
AdminStudio Virtualization Pack provides the path to
application readiness by providing packages in all formats
(MSI, App-V, ThinApp™, XenApp) from one workflow,
with consistent cost-effective results for the targeted Virtual
Desktop solution, regardless of vendor or endpoint.
Reporting
Virtual Desktop Assessment offers both out-of-the-box and
custom reporting with high, medium, and low-level reports
targeted at specific audiences including business decision
makers, technical decision makers, and IT Administrators.
Administrators and other users can select the most relevant
reports and run them on an ad hoc or scheduled basis.
IT can create custom reports from scratch or tailor one of
the many built-in reports. The solution provides an overall
suitability assessment, ranking computers and users into
low, medium, and high complexity groups based on usage
patterns and environmental conditions. The ranking is
calculated by taking an average of key metrics captured by
Virtual Desktop Assessment. The weightings can be adjusted
to align the results more closely with your environment.
6. Virtual Desktops for the Enterprise
6
The suitability assessment helps IT determine which users or
user groups to migrate first — for example, an administrator
may choose to migrate the best candidates first to gain
experience with virtualization, while minimizing costs and
user disruption.
High-level Reporting
High-level reports provide summary information for
business decision makers to gain insight into the scope of
a virtualization project and give them a quick view of the
technology problems that need to be solved. Summary
reports are an excellent starting point for understanding
the current desktop environment and laying out the details
of a virtualization strategy. Filtering enables IT to tailor
reports based on a variety of attributes to gain richer insight
into the data. High-level reports help IT discover desktops,
applications, and users with high resource requirements.
This information assists with capacity planning for virtual
desktops by providing an aggregated total of all computers,
users, and resources required for a virtualization project.
Number of machines: 27 Number of users: 22
Total CPU Allocated:
183.5 GHz
Total Memory Allocated:
160.3 GB
Total Disk Allocated:
10,513.8 GB
Peak Average CPU Used:
30.9 GHz
Peak Average Memory Used:
103.1 GB
Peak Average Disk Used:
6,015.7 GB
Figure 3: Summary Report
Figure 2: Virtual Profile Weighting
7. Virtual Desktops for the Enterprise
7
The Machine Age report provides information on which
users might need new computers or upgrades prior to
virtualization. This can impact the number of machines
virtualized, as keeping a machine in service for a user may
require moving their workload into a virtualized desktop,
or facing the consequences of upgrades of the current
desktop hardware. Additional reports that have an impact
on the virtualization project include: Operating system,
System CPU Load (%), Memory Used (MB), Disk Used (GB),
Graphics Intensity, User CPU Load (%), Network Latency
(ms), and Disk IOPs. The data provided in these reports
allows the business to understand their virtualization needs
from core components, beginning capacity planning by
understanding the work load that will be required to move
from a traditional desktop to a virtual desktop solution.
Analysis Models (Mid-level Reporting)
Mid-level reports provide the next level of detail so that IT
managers, architects, and others can gain additional insight
into the data collected by Virtual Desktop Assessment.
Filtering enables IT personnel to analyze data in a variety
of ways, creating a better understanding of virtualization
suitability and complexity. The mid-level reporting presents
data that identifies specific computers and groups of users
that are more and less suitable for virtualization. Based on
the settings for the Virtual Profile analysis administrators
can use the Virtual Profile Scatter Plot showing groups of
computers that are a better or worse fit based on specific
criteria defined in the Virtual Profile.
Figure 4: Virtual Scatter Plot (CPU and Memory versus IO)
8. Virtual Desktops for the Enterprise
8
Next Steps:
For more information, visit www.flexerasoftware.com/vda
or contact a Flexera Software representative.
Free Trial:
An AdminStudio Virtual Desktop Assessment free trial is
available at www.flexerasoftware.com/vda-trial or contact
a Flexera Software representative.
The mid-level reports take the data past the totals and
present information grouped for specific users, computers,
and resource requirements, enabling selection of the best
technology. This enables administrators to choose between
the list of technologies that are a better fit while maintaining
the user experience, and management overhead. Taking
the conceptual capacity planning from the high-level reports
and mapping it to specific technologies takes the next step
towards delivering a virtual desktop solution.
Detailed (Low-level Reporting)
Detailed reports provide granular data for pinpointing
data that finalizes capacity planning. This includes
identifying specific applications that cause higher resource
consumption, current application footprints on targeted
devices, and specific requirements for virtual desktop
solutions. This data is designed to expose limiting factors
of specific devices and user types. Companies can take the
application inventory data and rationalize to ensure that
they are only supplying applications to the users that use
them. With this additional level of detail, administrators can
cross-reference the data with usage and provide only the
applications that are consumed frequently in a VDI solution,
and provide access to infrequent application via Session
based solutions.
Cross-Platform Support
AdminStudio Virtual Desktop Assessment supports many
platforms, providing analysis for hypervisors from
VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Windows®
operating systems for
physical and virtual desktops, virtual desktop technologies
from VMware, Citrix, Symantec and Quest, as well as
application virtualization technologies from VMware,
Citrix, and Microsoft.
Removing the vendor-specific analysis enables IT
departments to run a single assessment where resource time
is allocated to a single project that provides data to select
technologies based on management effort, migration efforts,
capacity planning, while ensuring that the user experience
is at levels that meet or exceed expectations.
Conclusion
Virtual Desktop strategy has changed from a discussion to
an actionable project. Organizations that are planning a
successful Virtual Desktop strategy can utilize AdminStudio
Virtual Desktop Assessment to capture and analyze the data
required to make key decisions. Virtual Desktop Assessment
results empower the IT, finance, and legal departments with
reports based on data captured from their desktops and
users that provide the guidance to build a successful virtual
desktop strategy.
Virtual Desktop Assessment results enable project planning
prior to purchasing hardware and software for trial or test
solutions. Organizations can take the data generated and
create cost estimates for comparisons of the software and
hardware required for the solution. IT can feel confident that
the solution will deliver the expected user-experience during
the project by comparing data from the captured sample
during the process and ensuring that the infrastructure will
support the solution.