Member Article

New Virtual Realities

One of the greatest pressures faced by IT departments comes from changing employee behaviours as the workforce seeks to become more productive.

Employees are becoming more empowered and now, more than ever, are using consumer tools to help them achieve at work. Last year, Unisys’ Consumerisation of IT study found that 55 percent of surveyed European employees said they used personal devices and consumer applications to perform their role as the company they work for does not provide a viable alternative.

The growth of the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend, and the emergence of Bring Your Own Application (BYOA), obviously represents some headaches for the CIO. So how do you manage a potentially chaotic IT environment, make provisions for the proliferation of mobile devices and provide everything quickly and securely to an impatient workforce?

In addition to managing these behavioural trends, many IT departments face a host of other challenges – from budget cuts and operating system upgrades – to fragmented environments for applications or security and the need to apply device management policies and protocols to a growing number of mobile phones, tablets, laptops and, increasingly, the hybrid ‘phablet’ devices.

Many IT functions also find themselves having to contend with new business units and company sites through merger and acquisition activity as industries continue to consolidate.

These are all challenges which should steer the IT department towards the vision of a holistic, virtualised computing environment, giving greater flexibility, better provisioning, centralised management and a tighter grip on security and network access that keeps up with the rising demands of the business.

The concept of a virtualised environment is well established and the technology behind the virtualised workspace has existed for several years now, so, considering the wide ranging benefits, why haven’t organisations been clamouring to virtualise their operations?

What are the barriers to implementation?

Dimension Research recently published a survey of IT professionals, which found that network bandwidth, user acceptance and performance are the top challenges when it comes to virtual workspace adoption.

Bandwidth has always been a concern, even though there might be no impact on the actual latency or system performance, perceived by the users. Latency could result from network traffic for corporate applications or browser access to a central server, which could actually see improved performance if the infrastructure is based on the same site as the datacentre.

User experience can be dependent on bandwidth but this can be managed by understanding which users are likely to use more bandwidth and on what tasks, in addition to knowing which users are likely to access the network from a fixed connection on site, versus a mobile connection. Understanding employee workloads and types of network access enable IT managers to make better informed decisions and not dismiss Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) because of perceived bandwidth issues that might not exist.

To maintain network performance, virtual desktops can be load balanced, or moved from server to server, and can be centrally deployed in minutes instead of hours. But with this flexibility in the server layer comes the question of agile storage, another industry bug bear when it comes to VDI.

It’s crucial that rather than looking at storage to support virtual desktops as a direct comparison to an installed hard drive, businesses and IT managers identify the layers of data and what is required to support the operating system, personal employee data, operational data and archive data and provide the storage to match this.

With VDI you can put some storage on a high performing disc, such as the operating system while archive data and applications can be run using separate storage at a lower cost. It’s important to make the differentiation between high and low value data and store it accordingly. When you consider less than 10 percent of stored data is accessed more than once a week, the over spend on storage becomes clear.

Through understanding these types of nuances, IT teams can better support the business, without paying for storage which isn’t required. IT teams can also manage these virtualised storage arrays much more easily, with solutions such as VSPEX from EMC, which provides the ability to run 12 different virtual centres from one central view.

In addition to bandwidth and performance, end user satisfaction and storage requirements, there is the perceived issue of cost and complexity surrounding virtual desktop implementation that has dissuaded many companies from adopting the technology.

A recent independent technical analysis by Concentrated Technology, found 19 separate components that must be correctly integrated to create VDI. Broken down into no less than 10 distinct layers, the sheer volume of complexity VDI requires is often too much for the average IT organisation to tackle.

Equally, the concern is that the technology will increase the number of requests coming through from different devices, services and social media, also adding to the strain on the IT department. It’s true, developing a virtual desktop infrastructure in a private cloud can be complex because of all the pieces that build the underlying stack. Even once a solid framework is created, the work has only just begun.

IT administrators need to implement an operational procedure to enable the private cloud to function as a service offering and not be managed as a one-off situation every time.

Now however, there are ways to implement the technology on a modular basis, reducing complexity and moving the funding model from capital expenditure (CAPEX) to operating expenditure (OPEX), meaning business units can be provisioned quickly and easily with users given access to resources on an as-needed basis, allowing organisations to pay only for what they use.

This results in a model that can deliver cost effective, quality IT services that are future-ready for the enterprise – this model, user centric instead of device centric, is what Unisys calls “Workspace as a Service.”

This year, according to the CEB, CIOs are expected to allocate funding increases to projects that improve employee productivity through better insights, collaboration and mobility, and to increase IT’s delivery flexibility and efficiency. Not only can virtualised desktop help IT decision makers improve mobility and efficiency but it can free up budget for spend to be directed elsewhere.

For instance, applications deployed in a virtualised environment and consumed only when needed, can deliver a 10 percent cost reduction over the deployed licensing model. When you consider most companies run hundreds of corporate applications, the cost benefits are significant.

How the IT department benefits from the virtualised model

As we know, security is still one of the CIO’s key considerations, especially when you take into account increased mobility, remote working and the growth of the BYOD and BYOA trends.

Multiple access points to the network sounds like it might bring with it a multitude of security headaches, but when coupled with a virtualised desktop, or Workspace-as-a-Service (WaaS), environment it is easy to resource and securely manage many thousands of end users with centralised management tools.

New software upgrades, security protocols and applications can be deployed in minutes, rather than hours, by far fewer IT staff and when you add the latest biometric authentication and identity access solutions to your workforces’ devices, you have a very powerful security solution.

The other thing you have to take into account is that companies deploying thin client terminals or devices, operating in a virtual environment, ensure any activity leaves no trace on the hardware when users are logged out.

This provides reinforced security across all platforms, allowing remote users to operate securely whenever and wherever they may be. Even if an end user’s network access was compromised, the IT department can quickly and easily deny access to any corporate tools, applications or data repositories.

Traditionally, when the IT desktop has been compromised, it involves a lot of downtime before the user fully operational again. The WaaS model allows the IT department to manage issues centrally and ensure the user’s downtime is limited to a matter of minutes; minimising lost productivity through rapid resolution for the user through automated services, self-help tools or even a concierge service on site (which many companies are now looking at as an addition to the traditional model of fault resolution).

The savings are significant, with the traditional IT support management model averaging one man to support every 100 desktops. In a WaaS environment, you realise powerful economies of scale as each IT administrator can comfortably support, on average, 1000 seats. This level of central control ensures that even when laptops or mobile devices have to be replaced, it takes minutes to have the machine reimaged with the user’s credentials, apps, shortcuts, favourites and preferences; which negates any lost productivity.

In summary, the converged system can handle complex environments, including those with a large number of unique applications, a large installed server base and a high rate of business change. The IT department can now enjoy reduced downtime, an automated desktop and data backup, a simplified cloud and data infrastructure and more dynamic end user support to enhance productivity.

When you consider this alongside better value thin client hardware that comes with a longer ownership lifecycle and lower power consumption rates, it means the technology can now deliver faster ROI at lower total cost of ownership.

To achieve all of these significant plus points, the best practice approach should be to work with clients directly, matching the habits of individual users with the most appropriate technologies, and tailoring the technology to personalise user experience and provide users with flexibility across a wide range of devices.

For the IT department, our methodology creates an end-to-end WaaS ecosystem with scalable, flexible cost models designed to meet business needs.

As the workspace is increasingly replicated on a range of business and personal devices, organisations need to have a holistic approach with tighter controls and a broader view of business operations, now, and in the future. New technology will emerge which has better functionality and which better suits your business. But, do you have a flexible enough business model to adapt to it?

There’s now no excuse to delay any longer. Confront the virtual challenge today to get a real competitive advantage tomorrow.

Click this link to view infographic: Future Proofing the Enterprise: What’s the Hold Up?

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by David Milot, Managing Partner for Unisys Technology Consulting and Integration Solutions .