VDI viewpoint: Technology Effect

What VDI do you deploy?

Citrix.

When did your company first get involved in VDI? 

Technology Effect was an early adopter and promoter of VDI in Queensland; our first implementations were deployed in 2009. An early implementation was for Mater Health Services, which involved the initial deployment of over 300 concurrent VDI sessions. It replaced 3,500 retiring desktops and the environment now supports close to 2,000 concurrent sessions.

What credentials do you bring to VDI? 

Microsoft Gold Competency in the Devices & Deployment category, and we are a Gold Citrix Partner. We have eight certified Citrix engineers on staff, two of whom are Citrix MVPs.

Who are your main distributors or suppliers for VDI?

Our main disties of Citrix are Avnet and Express Data (now Dicker Data).

Tell us about some cool VDI technology

Citrix’s latest Xen Desktop has interesting enhancements and cool features, such as Hybrid Cloud Provisioning allowing the provision of desktops to either on-premise or public cloud infrastructures; the user experience is improving with more responsive login and reconnection, along with better graphics and peripheral (USB 3) support; and enhanced touch support.

Can you tell us about a recent VDI deployment you have done?

We assisted a not-for-profit organisation that aims to be the first-choice for information, education, treatment, care and support across Queensland for an often debilitating illness, to implement a VDI solution to enable a desktop platform capable of running new business applications.

What is driving customerstowards VDI? 

It’s the push to a mobile world and VDI’s benefits over traditional, physical deployments. The benefits that VDI promised to deliver when it first hit the market remain the same today. We’ve seen these benefits realised from the deployments that have had time to prove themselves. Benefits such as: session portability, ease of SOE upgrade, consistent user experience, enhanced technology and cheaper infrastructure.

VDI is…?

A great solution to enable organisations to achieve BYOD and transition to the mobile world, while providing a platform to deliver a consistent experience for the traditional productivity worker.