Saturday 10 November 2012

Do we need Virtual Desktop?


I had assumed a compelling case for Virtual Desktop (VDI) would eventually emerge .  Our 23,000 students and 4000 staff hold dear their 'academic freedoms'.  Even the word 'corporate' has evil connotations.  For us then, the holy grail of platform independence would be particularly seductive.  But a strong case to do more than play with this technology still eludes us.

Which of these is the problem looking for a VDI shaped solution above all others?

  1. How will we provide our researchers with their Linux and Mac devices access to corporate applications now and again?  We could use VDI but why over complicate this?  Web access should work fine.

  1. How will we provide 7000 distance learning students access to the same software as our campus based students from their personally owned devices?  We could use VDI for some applications but not the ones with complicated licensing restrictions and not the greedy ones.  So if it's not the complete answer, perhaps we should just give them a managed laptop?

  1. How can we make it cheaper and greener  to run 1,400 standard PC seats for students on campus? We could use VDI here but why would we?  We already do this very well and extremely efficiently.  Hard to see how this could save us much.

  1. How will we provide professional services and senior management staff with access to sensitive  master data when they are working remotely? What's wrong with an encrypted laptop and a VPN?
 
Is there anyone who works with highly sensitive data, has to work on a platform we don't manage and must be able to do so without leaving a local footprint?  I haven't found them yet.

1 comment:

  1. I would much prefer a web solution, or VPN rather than a complicated software product.

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