1. A departmental perspective
Virtual Desktops
A departmental perspective

2. “Nick Burns, Your company’s Computer Guy” SNL Video Clip

3. Since the dawn of PC’s Users have been in over their heads!
One-on-One tech support on site
Hardware Refresh
Power consumption
Computer Real Estate
Updates
Backup
Software licensing
Remote access
User error & “Customizations”
OS Security & HIPAA
Users go to the computer
No Consistent experience
80% of IT budgets are spent on SUPPORT!!!

4. (smart phones, tablets, laptops, etc.)
What Changed?
Consumer Tech
(smart phones, tablets, laptops, etc.)
“The OS is an App”

5. Consumer Tech in the bigger picture
"We want to get out of the hardware business and gain the ability to easily move our virtual servers into the cloud," said Dunn. "In the future--if it's financially beneficial and if it will result in better performance--we'll be able to slide servers out into Amazon, to Google's cloud, or wherever else we want.”
Sam Dunn CIO, Boston College
“IT is like electricity”
Cloud/Server -
Client/Consumer
Client - Server
Terminal-Server
VDI
Core X
Core X
Single Computer X X X X X

6. “The OS is an App” Separate into layers! Provision layers
Reassemble on the fly
Centrally manage
Secure
Unify AND customize user experience
Make available 24x7 anywhere on anything!
Regain control and accountability
Yes the entire PC experience!

7. Who is this for? Persistent User - FACULTY/STAFF
Power Users, full desktop experience lots of RAM and resources
Semi-Persistent User - STAFF
Word, Browse, maybe SPSS and update central files
Non-Persistent User - LABS
Labs with a “fresh desktop” every restart no saving
Think RAM, IOPS, and file storage usage per type

8. VDI Software
Citrix
VmWare

9. User Software Management

10. VDI Client Hardware

11. VDI Hardware The Whole Enchilada @ 350-500
$204,000 X

12. VDI Hardware
$133,000 X

13. What a 40 user POC might look like Citrix
$33,000

14. What a 40 user POC might look like KavizaX
$23,000

15. Local vs. SAN VDI Storage Which is correct?
Local – Storage (server) Bunch of SATA drives (10K RPM recommended)
Light user 4-5 IOPS
Median user 8-10 IOPS
Heavy user IOPS
Example 50 average users at Sustained IOPS
RAID 5 penalty (x4 writing)
Login/Boot storms
Recovery time…What’s acceptable?
Cost RAID 1: 143 GB $5.GB
Cost SAN SSD: $30-70GB
SAN is the default but is it really needed?
If not, you lose some features from Vsphere
Not enough spindles (blade servers)
Local cheap SSD isn’t great
No Storage tiering / data movement (cold vs. hot data)
No Dynamic capacity / cloud
Hybrid Approach: Dell equalLogic (moves HOT to SSD and back when needed)
Bottom line - could be either or a hybrid and change as you grow

16. Risks Power Outage Time to shut down UW Tower hosting
Multiple hardware points of failure
Multiple software layer points of failure
Network Bandwidth

17. ROI: The Big Picture
According to U of Connecticut w/ 700 virtual desktops
Cost $282,000
Capitol reduction of $318,000 over 5 years
30-40% reduction in replacement costs ($500 thin clients)
Less support needed
Reduced utility costs
Physical space reclamation (v Labs, multi-use offices)
Better security, consistancy, uptime and control
Scalable architecture that gets cheaper the bigger it gets
Sexy technology for recruitment and retention

18. The Bottom Line for Departments
Departmental ROI:
Tech time to provide more valuable services
Extending lab usage and teaching options
Better use of office space in some cases
Access to desktops from anywhere on anything
Less user down time
Costs are almost all up front with an estimated 5 year lifespan
It is not a direct cost savings measure to departments
Is collaboration either bottom-up or top-down (UW IT/AS/Departments) possible?
Interested?

19. Possible Future Cloud providers providing full customizable VDI
Some now provide $30/month with no customization options
This $30/month is 3X the cost of doing it ourselves with full customization.

20. Thanks Rich Ball, Senior Computer Specialist, UW Psych
Doug Kalk, Senior Computer Specialist, UW Psych
Jacob Morris, Technologies Manager, UW IT
Ron Kline and Kirk Wolden-Hanson, Directors of Computing, College of Arts and Sciences
Norman Chou, Field Solutions Architect, Virtualization, CDW
Josh Fleming, Technician, Citrix
A cast of many from CDW, Citrix, VMWare, Unidesk, Dell and elsewhere