Desktop virtualization is the natural evolution of a changing business operations landscape. With flexibility and availability becoming higher priorities than ever before, making user interfaces available anywhere can increase productivity, enhance management strategies and cut costs – three outcomes vital to continue fielding a competitive business model.
In a nutshell, desktop virtualization involves the abstraction of a user's desktop workspace from the physical machine onto a server. It allows the user to log on to his or her desktop interface from anywhere, connecting to applications and files via a data center instead of a single PC.
The nature of work with respect to technology has evolved rapidly in the last few years. Many employees use multiple devices for business, connect through the cloud and conduct a high percentage of their business activity via the Internet. Adherence to traditional workstation technologies would effectively put a cap on how fast an organization can move, mobilize and communicate. A business model based entirely on virtualization and Internet connectivity – which would include laptops, mobile devices and voice over Internet Protocol – could recreate the office for employees located anywhere. BusinessNewsDaily contributor Sara Angeles pointed out.
In today's business world, leaner is better. Changing environments, however, tend to make it easier to add than subtract. More devices, more applications, more security concerns, more equipment – many organizations are hard-pressed to keep costs from escalating out of control. Desktop virtualization helps companies not only corral escalating spending, but keep budgets down in the long term. Organizations can use existing infrastructure or small, targeted investments to build up a robust, virtualized environment quickly and problem free, wrote ZDNet contributor Simon Bisson. Cost-effectiveness is a significant driver for cloud investment, but virtualized infrastructure enables businesses to stretch the benefits of the cloud to all infrastructure as well. It gives companies the resources and breathing room to be able to invest in emerging developments and attack new challenges.