• The Total Economic Impact of Desktop Virtualization

    There is little argument that virtualization can help an organization be more resilient, agile and support more growth. Over the last couple of years, almost every IT department has worked with or at least tried some type of virtualization technology. Whether this is server, application or even desktop virtualization – each platform has great benefits and very strict considerations. A series of in-depth interviews with four existing Cisco VXI customers, two in financial services, one in education, and one in healthcare, revealed that these organizations reduced their desktop acquisition costs, ongoing IT management and operational costs, and future IT headcount growth costs.

    The core of the conversation revolves around the deployment of the right systems, with the right amount of planning, for an environment with a solid use-case. The Total Economic Impact Of Desktop Virtualization white paper takes a look at how the implementation of Cisco’s VDI/VXI solution can have direct operations as well as cost saving possibilities. In the in-depth analysis from Forrester Consulting, this paper presents the structure of these benefits as well as costs and how they fit into an IT plan. Each of the below benefits and costs are further elaborated upon in the interviews conducted with Cisco’s VXI customers. For example:

    Benefits. The composite organization experienced the following benefits that represent those reported by the interviewed companies:
    o Endpoint cost savings.
    o Reduction in future IT growth headcount.
    o IT staff performance improvement.
    o Server, storage, and network refresh savings.
    o Data center space savings.
    o Power and cooling savings.
    o Desktop administrator productivity improvements.
    o Ongoing desktop management productivity savings.

    Costs. The composite organization experienced the following costs:
    o Cisco hardware and annual maintenance costs.
    o Internal resources allocated to planning, testing, and deployment.
    o Third-party desktop software and storage cost estimates.
    o Professional fees.

    Download this white paper today to see how desktop virtualization can help your organization. Furthermore, this paper will outline the various factors which affect the benefits and costs of deploying a virtual desktop solution. When designing a VDI platform, organizations which plan out their end-points, their infrastructure, and the end-user experience will be able to launch a much better solution. Once those questions are answered, the organization will need to see and understand the cost/benefit analysis to see how the VDI cost structure breaks down. This white paper will show how users utilize a VDI environment, where the strengths lay, and how to best plan for such a deployment.

    About

    Bill Kleyman is a veteran, enthusiastic technologist with experience in data center design, management and deployment. His architecture work includes virtualization and cloud deployments as well as business network design and implementation. Currently, Bill works as a cloud and virtualization architect at MTM Technologies, a Stamford, CT based consulting firm.

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    Alex

    Posted February 5th, 2013

    What do you recommend as some of the better ways to deploy VDI?

    Bill Kleyman

    Posted February 5th, 2013

    It’s not so much of an alternative. If there is a good use-case, VDI can be a great platform. However, that’s the key — there has to be a good reason for a business to go VDI. Furthermore, there needs to be an understanding of the underlying infrastructure needed to support a healthy VDI platform. That said, many organizations are deploying a healthy mix of application and desktop virtualization. In this scenario, applications can be delivered via a portal while virtual desktops are provisioned only to those users that really need them. The industry breakdown between application vs. desktop virtualization ranges from 80/20 to 60/40.

    Alex Pisani

    Posted February 6th, 2013

    Interesting to see the industry breakdown around 70%. At what scale would you believe it to be cost effective for a business to deploy VDI?

    Thanks for the quick response yesterday.

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