Hosted Virtual Desktops or Hosted Virtual Delays?

Understanding the network performance requirements of a time-critical application is a key element to making HVD work.
Diagnosing current network performance and health will provide the basis for effective revision of network policies, traffic prioritisation and also application acceleration technologies. This will ensure an excellent first time end-user experience of a new application or thin client device – in essence, your HVD deployment gets the bandwidth it needs. Without this level of preparation, there is a risk that the business will feel pressured to add more and more new applications to the network, or to continually expand network bandwidth. Such an approach ultimately provides only a short-term fix to the problem, as opposed to resolving it ‘at source’. In the longer term, this could negatively impact business process, customer experience, individual and work force productivity.

But making the most of virtual desktops goes beyond preparation. Ultimately it is user experience which determines the success of a deployment, and this needs to be maintained while ‘live’. Network health and performance audits need to be undertaken on a periodic basis and not simply done as a one-off exercise. Enterprise management tools should be used to monitor application health, to ensure servers, operating systems and databases are performing, and to maintain visibility of the blades in the data centre. It’s also essential to have an awareness of WAN and LAN availability. By following this ‘socket-to-socket’ approach, SLAs will better reflect the true end-user experience.

Finally, the organisation needs to have a level of preparedness for future growth. The HVD infrastructure may handle the current levels of traffic, but user experience cannot be allowed to deteriorate if the organisation expands. Companies must determine whether to “build” or “buy” this capability. Is this something they want to invest in -through systems, processes skills and resources-with delivery provided internally via the IT department? Or use this guidance to validate the capabilities of a potential managed network services provider who can provide the desired service to agreed commercials and contractual obligations.

In summary, an HVD deployment may be the technology that gives IT a platform to deliver true value to the business, and may even re-define the way an organisation works. But in order to meet these aspirations, the IT department must ensure that when seeking to implement a hosted virtual desktop strategy, it doesn’t forget the network.