Brought to you by

Overcoming barriers to VDI adoption

By Rishi Manocha, Global Lead - Cloud Client-Computing

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) has been recognized as a proven

technology that enables greater user mobility, improves data security
and streamlines IT management. Its no surprise then that many
organizations, particularly those in heavily regulated industries such
as healthcare, government, financial services and education, have
embraced the technology or have a proof of concept underway.
However, even though VDI delivers clear organizational benefits and
significant ROI over time, the question remains: why havent more
organizations embraced the technology?

Perceptions impacting VDI adoption

The answer is that in certain quarters, VDI is perceived as being
complex, costly and difficult to deploy and manage. Embracing a VDI
architecture undoubtedly requires a re-assessment of the classic PC
refresh cycle toward an investment in datacenter infrastructure. VDI
solutions often require the planning and build-out of a private cloud
environment to host user desktops that have traditionally resided on
distributed endpoints such as PCs and laptops.
Moving to a centralized datacenter-based environment historically
required significant internal or contracted expertise to source the
right infrastructure components from several vendors and then
actually configure them correctly. This exercise typically involved
approximating the amount of server, storage, and networking
hardware required, juggling a variety of protocols, configuring
complex software elements, and then fine-tuning endpoint devices to
deliver a compelling user experience.
With so many steps, VDI adoption seemed like a costly and
challenging endeavor, and one that could easily consume valuable IT
resources for weeks or even months. As a result, it is understandable
why some organizations have been wary of the required commitment.
After all, why take on a complex project to assemble a custom
environment at the risk of disrupting production user desktops that
are seen as good enough?

Virtual Desktop
Infrastructure (VDI)
has been recognized
as a proven
technology that
enables greater user
mobility, improves
data security and
streamlines IT
management.

The reality

Going beyond fast deployment

While many of these challenges and

risks are often taken for granted,
present-day VDI has hit an inflection
point. Organizations, such as Dell and
our partners Citrix, VMware, NVIDIA
and others, have innovated both
independently and collaboratively to
mitigate the lingering perception of the
heavy lift associated with VDI planning,
procurement, and deployment.

While simple and efficient deployment is

compelling enough, these end-to-end
solutions enable organizations to gain
additional benefits around data security
and streamline the management and the
delivery of a rich user desktop experience.
Take for example, the ability to deliver user
desktops through low-touch zero clients,
such as the Dell Wyse 3000, 5000 and
7000 series for Citrix and VMware.

For example, the recently launched Dell

Precision Appliance for Wyse is a virtual
workstation appliance which sets a new
benchmark for ease of deployment. This
pre-configured appliance integrates
our optimized workstation compute,
storage and networking resources with
NVIDIAs virtualized graphics technology
and VMwares hypervisor and desktop
brokering software.

These endpoints are purpose-built for VDI,

are easy to install and can be centrally
configured and managed through our
cloud-based Dell Wyse Device Manager.
With no attack surface, Wyse endpoints
are virus immune and prevent data
leakage at the endpoint. Valuable data
is securely stored in the datacenter
and is streamed to users using leading
compression protocols.

The appliance comes thoroughly

validated by Dell, and is certified or
nearing certification by leading ISVs
such as Autodesk, Siemens, PTC and
Dassault Systemes. The Dell Precision
Appliance for Wyse is designed and
purpose-built to be deployed in five
minutes or less. Dell offers several other
purpose-built appliances, including the
Dell XC Web-Scale Converged Appliance,
the Dell Appliance for Wyse, and the
Dell Engineered Solutions for VMware
EVO:RAIL Horizon Edition. Each of our
appliances make it easy to quickly stand
up a VDI environment that is tailored to
your specific needs.

Take advantage of these

innovations

For organizations that need a higher level

of flexibility, we offer validated reference
architectures that promote greater
choice and the ability to leverage existing
infrastructure. Whether you prefer
appliances or reference architectures,
our end-to-end solutions seamlessly
integrate optimized hardware, software,
endpoints and services to ensure that
your organization can stand up a VDI
environment quickly with minimal risk,
and then easily and predictably scale the
environment to accommodate more
users in the future.

Dell Inc, 2015. All rights reserved.

VDI definitively addresses key

organizational challenges; after all, which
organization doesnt want to enhance
data security while enabling greater user
mobility, flexibility and productivity? IT
efficiency gains driven from centralized
image management, low maintenance
endpoints and reduced TCO make VDI
even more attractive.
With validated end-to-end solutions
that leverage innovations from Dell and
our partners Citrix, VMware, NVIDIA
and others, organizations that have
considered adoption can now build out
a compelling VDI environment quickly
and at a reasonable cost of entry. Our
VDI offerings provide immediate benefits
that scale as your needs change. Your
organization can benefit from the
security, management and user mobility
benefits of VDI while overcoming
roadblocks that existed in the past.
Simply put, Dell makes VDI easy.
For more information on desktop
virtualization and Dells VDI offerings,
we invite you to visit Dell.com/wyse.