VDI Questions

The following discussions and corresponding topics should be part of the optimized desktop
strategy:

 What are the use-cases? Does the use-case require Desktop Virtualization?
 VD-why, what do you want to achieve, a business enabler, overall cost of ownership
(TCO) and cost reducer?
 What is the business-case? What do you expect as a ROI?
 How do you deliver applications to users in a Bring Your Own (BYO) or Choose
Your Own (CYO) scenario?
 What’s your desktop delivery and migration strategy for Windows 7/Windows 8?
 What’s the user experience using Multimedia, Video/Voice, 2D/3D applications?
 Is Unified Communications and VoIP functionality within VDI needed? Is it
supported by the VDI and UC-vendor?
 What are the user expectations of the vDesktop? Are users involved in a proof of
concept and pilot? What are their acceptation criteria?
 What endpoints do we support and facilitate and what is the role of these devices in
the end-user experience? Are the endpoints managed by the IT organization?
 Do you want to deliver windows and web applications to mobile devices such as
tablets and smartphones via VDI? What does the user wants? What is your enterprise
mobility strategy?
 What is the impact of Secure Access and Secure Networking solutions on mobile
devices while connecting to the vDesktop? What is the user experience with these
secure access solutions?
 Is there a supported agent for the OS/endpoint? What is the User Experience with
this agent? What is the feature and future roadmap of these agents? Is agentless via
HTML(5) included and important?
 Is image deployment and management part of the (virtual) Desktop Strategy?
 How do you design and build the user’s profile and his ‘workspace’? Does
Application virtualization fit into this strategy? The ‘User Environment
Management’ Smackdown can be helpful.
 Do we need a vMachine based image management solution? How do we design,
build and maintain the (golden) Image(s)?
 Do you need context awareness? Based on user/role, device, location and various
settings is access to application resources controlled and enforced when needed?
 What is your application readiness assessment strategy? Are Windows 7, Windows
8, VDI, application virtualization and x64 included?
 How are Windows applications delivered within the vDesktop? Unattended or
manual installation, application virtualization or the applications are part of the
(golden) image? What is the strategy?
 Does the end-user needs the ability to install and update applications? Is User
Installed Applications functionality needed? Does the user have the correct
privileges to install or update software?
 Do you need local or centralized storage? What storage optimization (IOPS/latency)
technology is being used?
 What is the VDI impact on storage and how does it affect the business case?
 Do we focus on stateless (non-persistent) and/or stateful (hybrid/persistent) images?
What is, for example, the impact on storage, manageability, security, legal and
business-case?
  Windows 8 or Windows 7 as core guest OS platform? x64 or x86?
 How does the solution scale? What do we need from a scalability point of view? Is
there a validated design?
 What is the performance and bandwidth impact on the network infrastructure;
LAN, WAN, WLAN, Mobile;
 Licensing; VDI solution, guest and client operating system, Client Access Licenses
and (Business) Applications.
 Is Antivirus needed? Inside the VM or as layer on the Hypervisor? What is the real
performance impact of Antivirus?
 Is the VDI solution as a whole highly available? Is that built-in or are additional
planning and solutions needed to get high availability? Is a highly available vDesktop
needed?
 Is the IT department able to adopt the technology with right knowledge and skills?
What subject matter experts are needed to get and keep the VDI solution up and
running in production environment? Is this expertise available? Who has overview of
the complete VDI solution stack?
 How does the desktop virtualization solution fit into existing deployment and
management tools?

Bottom Line: What’s your current Enterprise Mobility and Desktop Delivery
strategy?!

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