HorizonChat

What's on the Horizon?
What’s on the Horizon for Desktop and App Virtualization?
John Furrier
Q2: Why should an enterprise organization consider virtual desktops and app virtualization now? What’s changed?
Andrew Morgan
HCI / storage improvements, Maturing Desktop virl products, Competitive challengers, Great partner eco system
Yoni Avital
VMware and Citrix are at each other throats, time for great prices
Kevin Cooke
abstraction of applications, regardless of delivery is necessary for anywhere, anytime, any device. Why be tethered to a specific OS or piece of hardware?
Andrew Morgan
@yavital Competition drives innovation after all :)
Tony Foster
I think it goes back to my earlier statement... the cloud has changed. with many adopting a cloud first model & consumers on the move. Adopt now or become outdated soon!
Barry Coombs
the complete concept around EUC has and is changing, trying to manage a much more diverse platform than one PC per user with your own apps alone. A modern desktop needs to be flexible for many reasons, VDI and App virt is just two solutions
John Furrier
Is there any new technology/trend in past few years which have changed or "incented" an enterprise to move faster?
Andrew Mauro
different needs... in some cases you need an entire desktop... in other maybe just few applications
Shawn Bass
A2: So many reasons. Display protocol improvements, storage perf, hyper converged h/w, virtual graphics, etc all make it near or better than local experience.
Phillip Jones
Overall technology improvements of the entire stack from hardware to EUC software & app modernization are removing a lot of barriers
Shawn Bass
@yavital Competition is always good for customers.
Andrew Mauro
And there are also other approaches... like managed desktops/laptop (ie: Mirage)
Rodrigo Gazzaneo
all-flash storage is making many VDI deployments viable now
Barry Coombs
the internet or connectivity improvements maybe? Server virtualisation?
Ambrose Cohen
I'd say the BYOD model has caused a lot of companies to look at desktop virtualization and app delivery more closely in the past couple of years.
Rodrigo Gazzaneo
@petrirantanen agree. Flash is making VDI at scale affordable.
Grant Friend
GPU is bringing some benefits but storage
Nigel Hickey
EUC maturity is a definite plus.
Shawn Bass
@thefog72 Completely agree. Device proliferation is driving much of this change. Thanks for your comment.
Petri Rantanen
Hyper converged and new innovations like app vol.
Simon Bramfitt
Lots of incremental improvements,
Tony Foster
@GrantsFriend I think GPU is part of it, and its making it so orgs can address the last few closet cases that couldnt be virtualized before.
Yoni Avital
App Volumes might change the game if implemented properly (to Horizon)
Phillip Jones
@wonder_nerd GPU is still very niche, I think this will change as it becomes integral in the hardware
Rory Monaghan
Built in redundancy. After initial high investment, maintenance costs would be lower than many more physical machines. Provide more flexibility for the organization. Work from anywhere, whenever required.
Simon Bramfitt
If done right, VDI delivers a 'better' desktop with lower capex and opex than conventional distributed desktops
Grant Friend
@wonder_nerd it will make it easier as it becomes integral but organisations that didn't consider VDI are now looking at it due to GPU improvements and GRID intergration
Aaron Bolthouse
Rapid deployment, easier administration, more uniformity and control, easier to fix most issues #HorizonChat
Joe Baguley
VDI/App virt/MDM/MAM should all be parts in a bigger strategy for an org to deliver apps and data to users on any device, securely.
Rory Monaghan
App Layering in the likes of AppVolumes, Unidesk and FlexApp are huge! I would much prefer that method of packaging and deploying to the masses. Huge time, cost and resources savings. Less skilled packagers required too
Rodrigo Gazzaneo
@P2Vme niches are promising. Think Healthcare and O&G potential for VDI with GPU
Shawn Bass
@wonder_nerd Agree on corner cases, but GPU is increasingly becoming an assumed capability for basic things like productivity software and web browsing. WebGL will drive this even more.
Simon Bramfitt
@P2Vme Last year it was niche by necessity, this year all bets are off
Petri Rantanen
GPU is very important now, you have be better than PC.
Chuck Russell
=> Security, security, security.
Thomas A. Gustaveson
hyperconverged infrastructure for sure - all of the big players are entering the game
Andrew Morgan
@SimonBramfitt amen, when done right, Desktop Virtualisation is the best solution hands down.
Tony Foster
@P2Vme Yes and no... look at MS OSs, android, IOS... all of them are getting more and more graphics intensive... I think it will become extremely relevant to most desktops in the next 2 years.
Barry Coombs
@shawnbass Most solutions we are doing now have some GPU capability for everyday use cases, GPU doesnt just mean CAD etc
Phillip Jones
@SimonBramfitt I think it will take longer and I agree... I wouldn't have wrote a blog that it should / will be standard if I didn't :)
Shawn Bass
@Rorymon Totally agree. These techs really do transform VDI/RDSH deployment and mgmt. Provides great OpEx reduction.
Simon Bramfitt
@NutanixTommy EVO:RAIL has commoditized hyper- convergence for general workloads but few platforms are well suited for VDI yet
Rory Monaghan
@shawnbass I try not to get into the OpEx v CapEx discussions in my places of work when they come up but from a technical standpoint. It's the shit! :)
John Furrier
Q3: What is the significance of “app transformation?” What does this even mean?
Barry Coombs
I think the future for most applications is cloud native browser based applications, however we cant forgot the legacy applications and this is where app publishing and virtualisation come to play
Grant Friend
Removal of the reliance on a defined OS, how realistic this is is another thing
Joe Baguley
Should be looking at how to free apps and data from a particular O/S and deliver to any device, securely. Initially virtualising windows apps, but ultimately re-writing to HTML5 etc.
Ambrose Cohen
Centralized management and distribution of apps, I guess.
Petri Rantanen
"app transformation"???? what
Grant Friend
@VirtualisedReal Agreed but we're some way off. Don't think the browser or developers are up to speed with what we think
Yoni Avital
Yesterday visited a customer site (healthcare) that has legacy windows 2000 (!) MetaFrame farm for some old apps
Captain Hook
Flexibility in new deployments - from ThinApps, to RDS hosted apps, now app Volumes, this abstraction is making pick-and-chose apps/layers and management easier #HorizonChat
Chuck Russell
App transformation to me means the movement to any device. For example I can't put a web based app on a wearable - there is no Apple Watch Browser. So app transformation implies service layers below that provide general functions/features that allow the
Shawn Bass
Most people use the term app rationalization which is all about determining what apps are truly needed for the org and then focusing on them or pushing to SaaS where possible to reduce costs.
Benny Tritsch
Even if cloud native apps may be the future, there are still tons of Windows apps out there - and those need to be supported for quite a while
Andrew Mauro
different type of app depending on how you are consuming them, manage them (ie ThinApp app), or develop them
Andrew Morgan
@VirtualisedReal YES! and this approach covers the basis for most deployment models, removing the operating system trade off we currently have to make
Petri Rantanen
Cloud app, i wish there where even Win7 apps
Chuck Russell
allow the APP to be tuned to the appropriate UI metaphors.
Barry Coombs
@shawnbass This is a huge problem for most but critical to moving forward with any EUC project
Joe Baguley
@VirtualisedReal True, there is a very long tail. But we mustn't just put in stop gaps that are just delaying a problem a few years...
Shawn Bass
@drtritsch Preaching to the choir here Benny. I've always said after nuclear war it'll be cockroaches and Windows apps that survive. ;)
Andrew Mauro
@Andrea_Mauro Most are going to HTML5 or web apps... but I don't think that there is only one possibility in app transformation
Captain Hook
@JoeBaguley That's a dream, HTML5 won't come for a lot of apps, but we're more flexible in how we can deploy things, anyway.
Andrew Morgan
@drtritsch agreed, but placing them in a html 5 delivery platform and improving touch access to them goes a long way.
Barry Coombs
@JoeBaguley I agree, this is a huge challenge for how this is achieved for most, legacy systems are holding a lot of organizations back
Andrew Mauro
IMHO are most important that app could be cloud ready and scale and be high availability using the cloud opportunities
Rodrigo Gazzaneo
@yavital legacy stays longer than many technologists would like to. VDI is a bridge.
Shawn Bass
@JoeBaguley I think the challenge orgs have today is they no longer have 10 years to figure this out because of OS Migration. Now it's move fast or die.
Shawn Bass
@vGazza @yavital Yes, but that bridge will be around for as long as the Windows long tail is. Hint: We'll all be retired. ;)
Rodrigo Gazzaneo
@shawnbass legacy Windows apps are far more resilient than roaches!
Simon Bramfitt
@yavital not surprising, you will also probably find that they have a PDP-11 tucked away in a dark corner somewhere. Just because we call it legacy doesn't mean there's not a good business case to keep it
Joe Baguley
@shawnbass The tail is very long, but we have to make sure we are headed in the right direction...
Rory Monaghan
It's a really exciting time to be in the EUC Space. In my experience the main hurdle for VDI projects has been the apps. Getting the desktops up and running is and has been somewhat painles. Transformation is simples now
John Furrier
@anthonyrhook You could be the crowd captain today CaptainHook :-)
Rory Monaghan
Default to AppVirt with isolation, apps doesn't work when isolated. Layer it. The HTML5 discussion is interesting. Cameyo and MainFrame2 already have this but it seems niches at the moment
Rory Monaghan
Windows applications on a phone just don't jive, even with HTML5 unless the app is properly refactored
Rory Monaghan
AppX on Windows 8\8.1\10 mainly point to a site anyways. So HTML5 modern apps should become the norm...or so you'd hope