Citrix on application virtualisation

Virtualisation is about the delivery of experience without reliance on physical resources.

A flight simulator, for example, delivers the experience of flight to trainee pilots without the need for them to fly a plane physically.

Similarly, virtualisation provides the experience of a desktop application to users without the need for it to sit physically on their PC, laptop, PDA or other personal device.

In reality the applications sit on a central server and only a virtual interface is sent over the network i.e. key strokes and mouse clicks, while screen updates are sent to client devices.

The technology benefits of application virtualisation are threefold.

Firstly because the application and associated data are managed and maintained centrally, access to that data can be easily monitored and protected from theft or other attacks.

Secondly, the risk that applications may be adversely affected by the idiosyncrasies of individual end-user devices, networks or locations is greatly reduced.

The end-user experience can be standardised without the need to standardise the end- user device.

Finally, because applications only need to be physically implemented once, centralised applications are easier to scale.

Bringing new users on line takes just minutes or hours rather than the weeks or months it might take otherwise.

These benefits drive IT efficiencies, but the real benefits are felt at a business level.

Centralised control

Regulations such as Basel II and Sarbanes Oxley make business leaders accountable for mission-critical business processes and the reporting and tracking of data.

Ninety percent of those processes are captured by software.

As applications drive processes, businesses will welcome an opportunity to centralise control through application virtualisation.

Another business benefit of application virtualisation is that it dramatically reduces the risks associated with outsourcing.

If applications are centralised, companies can distribute work to third parties but retain control over data and intellectual property (IP).

Access can be monitored remotely, further increasing data security. And, if an outsourcing contract is terminated, companies are not tied to their outsourcing vendor by the cost of upfront IT investments.

Suppliers can be switched ‘on demand’ and virtual applications quickly redeployed.

One of the biggest drivers for application virtualisation is business continuity.

With the threat of terrorism, and natural disasters, contingency planning is at the forefront of most business leaders’ minds – organisations are considering how their companies might continue to function if employees cannot get to the workplace.

By replicating centralised applications on a back-up server, companies are able to provide every employee with a desktop experience identical to the one they usually use in the office, no matter what computers they are sitting at and where they may be.

In the event of a disaster or disruption, the workforce can be productive again very quickly.

Application virtualisation also gives businesses the freedom to grow flexibly.

Opening a branch office can imply only a step change in operating costs where placing even one or two people into a new location requires a new IT infrastructure to be created to support them.

Delivering applications virtually to a new branch office allows the company to test the waters for a new location incurring no more IT costs than it would had the new employees been based in the lead office.

Furthermore, these remote workstations can be managed, upgraded and controlled from the central server, ensuring standardisation of business-critical applications and reducing the total cost of ownership as new regional locations are developed.

Devil is in the detail

With a fair understanding of what application virtualisation is and how it works, we can look to the future and examine what it can deliver.

I believe that virtualisation will lead to the automation of IT management.

In other words, IT managers will no longer proactively install applications at the desktop for users or configure users’ personal devices to meet their needs.

Neither will they need to allocate servers to specific applications.

Rather, resources consumed by an application will be provided on demand according to pre-agreed policies.

By setting out these policies to match service level agreements (SLAs) developed with stakeholder groups, they can guarantee that the SLAs are reliably met.

But like all things, the devil is in the detail.

In order to achieve a state of automated IT management, you need to have established a reliable operating layer on which the virtual applications sit.

This needs to include accurate system health monitoring.

With the right tools and automation, IT managers are better equipped to avert or minimise perceived interruptions to virtualised applications.

Without them, IT managers could be constantly fire fighting user queries and system errors.

It is also crucial to include autonomic load management which takes control of the load balancing at a level outside of user control, ensuring that critical functions are always given the capacity that they need and that ‘power users’ of resource-hungry applications do not compete with others.

With these foundations for automated IT management in place, businesses can deliver virtual applications knowing that they have all the benefits of centralised management and control while still guaranteeing the end-user experience.