As this is my first post in this forum, let me start by introducing myself. My name is John Dunlop and I am an IT Enterprise Service Architect responsible for Intel's IT client solution architecture. I've had this role for less than a year, having previously been responsible for some of our identity & access management services, as well as other backend core services. What an exciting time to have made the shift to the client side of IT! To say that there have been considerable and accelerating advancements in client usage models and application delivery models is truly an understatement.
Historically the most interesting and divisive discussions of client architecture have revolved around the debate over thin versus thick clients. Both models have their advantages and disadvantages, of course, but ultimately (as all IT architects know) it's all about enabling the business to have their cake and eat it too. We need to provide a client that is robust enough to survive network connectivity or performance issues, enable an increasingly mobile workforce, support data center consolidation, and satisfy the consumerization and personalization trends that are forcing IT to make more and more compromises to keep customers happy. On the other hand, competitive pressures drive IT budgets ever lower, keeping manageability center stage for providing TCO reduction and making IT managers crave more and more control over the client. Neither thin nor thick clients ultimately deliver on all of their promises, partly because the world has never been that black and white and one size rarely fits all.
Enter virtualization. Now, some will point out that we've had "presentation layer" virtualization solutions for decades, but again, this shifts us squarely into the realm of thin clients which simply don't serve our mobility needs and shift costs to the infrastructure. The benefits of true, on-board virtualization capabilities were immediately apparent on the server, but client virtualization wasn't taken seriously (as scalable) by many until fairly recently. Sure, you could run a guest OS on a client host OS for training purposes, or to do some specific task that wasn't supported on the host OS, but there was substantial overhead from a performance standpoint, and let's face it, the average user was never going to be satisfied with all the complexity and effort of moving between host and guest. Ever notice how it always seemed to be IT people using a virtualized guest OS for some constructive end? Improvements in technology (e.g. dual core, Intel VT) have meant substantial mitigation of the performance concerns, and the competition to deliver more and more capabilities and transparency in software hypervisors is creating a virtual arms race for the virtual desktop. It is amazing to see how far we've come when when you can run apps in two different operating systems simultaneously as they float side by side on the same desktop, allow cross-registration of applications, and share file systems, task bars, paste buffers, etc., etc.
Here's where you get that cake. Rather than continuing to evolve that tightly-coupled fat client architecture you've built a career around (so when are you planning to upgrade to Vista?) or continuing to tell your users that mobility is overrated while you shift client support costs to the network and data center with your antiquated thin client strategy, let's think outside the box for a minute.
Virtualization is about abstraction, and there are several layers where you can exploit abstraction using existing virtualization technologies and products. The most obvious one is between the guest OS and the host OS or hypervisor. This abstraction layer may, for example, allow you to change your client hardware procurement or provisioning model. Even a decision made to leave those business processes alone can be made confident in the knowledge that changing that decision later doesn't require a complete redesign of your client solutions. Some companies are even thinking about discontinuing the practice of providing laptops to mobile workers, opting instead to give them an annual stipend to purchase their own systems with their own OEM support contracts and a host OS they can do with as they please.
Virtualizing the workspace, even if that remains a tightly-coupled OS and application solution stack for the time being, makes that workspace transportable across devices, easier to recover, even potentially resident on a thumb drive. Because the user has a host OS to horse around with, you can finally lock down that work environment like you've always wanted. And, now you can provide a variety of workspaces through virtualization, including productivity and collaboration, engineering, manufacturing/shop floor control, etc. Making the framework of your client more modular means greater agility for your business, and you can finally begin looking at the workspaces you provide as true services.
And what about the tight integration of those applications? Another abstraction layer is between the applications and the guest OS. New and old capabilities and techniques can be employed to virtualize those applications, albeit not without some elbow grease within the greater IT organization to stop developing and/or deplolying proprietary or OS-dependent apps to the client. New IT policies that promote standards and provide guidance about the most appropriate forms of application virtualization and application delivery would be an excellent start. Writing applications on Java VM for example, or at least not using proprietary browser extentions in web apps would go a long way toward making applications available across workspaces and operating systems. Even for natively installed applications, adherence to standard data object types and document formats will provide at least the look and feel of virtualization which may be good enough in some cases. I don't have time or space here to get into the merits of Software as a Service (SaaS), but there is a clear paradigm shift occurring in the application delivery space that can support cross-platform "virtualization" of applications, and new technologies are even allowing for the caching of streamed applications that can run even when disconnected from the network!
Finally, and this may be the hardest abstraction layer of all, there is the holy grail of data virtualization. Imagine thinking about data as being associated with users rather than devices. Why are we still thinking in terms of client backups? I want my data to be available no matter what device I use to run my workspace. If I have a problem with my device or workspace, and a new workspace is provisioned, streamed, or otherwise made available to me, my data should be there as well, protected by some network service responsible for managing my data and serving it up to me no matter what device or workspace I may be using. I must admit that I haven't looked into the options in this area much yet, but I fear this is an area that lacks maturity from a client mobility perspective.
Naturally, there are significant manageability and security implications for this type of architecture. Hey, I never said this was easy! Many products are coming to market, however, to complement virtualization products to fill these needs. Figuring out how to solve these challenges is worth some time and effort. Client virtualization is not a fad; rather it is an evolutionary step forward that will provide IT and the businesses they support with newfound agility and competitive advantage in terms of lower integration costs, faster turnaround time, and improved user experience.
