Nabeel Youakim, Vice President, Asia Pacific Products & Microsoft Alliance, Citrix Systems, talked to Jasmine Desai about VDI and the latest developments at Citrix
What’s driving VDI adoption?
Firstly, there is the BYOD trend. There is also the need to use public Cloud models while at the same time deploying more desktops and upgrading Windows and rolling out new applications. CIOs are getting pulled in different directions. The PC is no longer the center of attention. Other devices are more on people’s minds. IT has to transform its set-up for the Cloud era. They have to build data centers assuming that the majority of the workforce will be mobile and that BYOD will be pervasive. Most employees will have to shuffle between personal, private and public Cloud services. This is a peak problem for IT as there is lot of internal data that circulates amongst these three. It is obvious that the personal Cloud is really about the mobile workforce and about using any device and not just a PC. The challenge for IT guys is to ensure that data is available from all of these devices but that access to it is controlled. On the other hand, the private and public Cloud are merging. Sometimes, without IT’s control, employees are using Cloud applications. Citrix products like Xenserver and CloudStack allow you to build the private and public Cloud in the same way. There needs to be a bridge from the private Cloud in a company’s data center to the public Cloud. It is vital that, whatever data access is needed, it should be provided from a centralized location.
We are building a new low-cost model for thin-clients, which is called Citrix HDX. It costs only $99 as compared to a normal thin-client that costs $300. We are working with Texas Instruments and Ncomputing and they are building HDX technology into their chipsets. They call it System-on-a-Chip. They are going to be building these chips at a much lower cost, which they will sell to thin-client terminal manufacturers.
Desktop virtualization is far from pervasive in India. Why is that?
Desktop virtualization is obviously more difficult to deploy than server virtualization. In desktop virtualization, one has to worry about users, application performance, connecting USB devices, connecting cameras etc. It is a more complex environment. Its use has not spread for two reasons, one being that it fails because organizations think that it is as simple as putting a workload on a server. However, it is what is inside the desktop device that is more important. The other reason that it has not taken off in India is the price point. Citrix HDX will change the price point game in India. We have already deployed a hundred thousand virtual desktops in India and nine million worldwide. India is about six to nine months behind the curve on this. With a lot of 3G networks being deployed, things are definitely set to change.
Is desktop virtualization going to be about application delivery?
At the end of the day, we use a desktop PC to get access to applications. Therefore, it’s really about the applications as this is how work gets done. The desktop is important, but it is first and foremost about the applications. Citrix has been working with Microsoft to deliver Windows 8 desktops to Windows 7 or Windows XP devices, Macs, Blackberry phones etc.
After the RingCube acquisition, have those capabilities been integrated into your product line?
There are two ways to deliver VDI desktops. One is a pooled model wherein, if there are four desktops, these four desktops are pooled into one desktop. Therefore, IT maintains a single image. Another model is to have a dedicated desktop for individuals. Changes could be made to it individually, but IT will have to maintain four separate images. With vDisk, we have pooled desktops and, on top of that, a layer of vDisk for every individual desktop with personalized applications. In this manner, you benefit from dedicated desktops with almost no overhead.
How can desktop virtualization deployments be simplified?
You have to take into account the applications that you want to put on VDI and if certain applications will work on virtualized Windows 7 or 8. We acquired a company called AppDNA. It analyzes desktop applications and tells you which applications can be virtualized immediately, which ones need some work and also tells you how they can be fixed and be made ready for virtualization. They were a partner of ours who worked on moving from Windows XP to Windows 7 virtualized. They are building Windows 8 components as well.
