I've just finished watching Intel's webcast roundtable on client/desktop virtualisation and feel I've come away educated and in many ways excited about the future. On the panel was Intel's Jim Henrys, Ian Pratt from Citrix and Guy Lidbetter from Atos Origin.
The thing that really struck me is the opportunity for workers to enjoy a safe, productive working environment on their work desktop, or home laptop using virtualisation without compromise; seamlessly moving between devices and environments with access to all their applications and data.
So where are we right now with client virtualisation? The panel moderator Martin Artherton, from Freeform Dynamics, made the point that client virtualisation is not yet as mature as server virtualisation. And the reason? One of them is that there are many different flavours to client virtualisation and IT professionals are still working out which solution is best for them.
Ian Pratt from Citrix said the technology was maturing, pointing to the 100 million end users it was servicing. He pointed out that client virtualisation is now advancing because of the features being put onto the silicon itself by Intel and others.
Jim Henrys said client virtualisation was at an inflection point. "There is a lot of chaos here," he said, adding, "don't go gown one architectural route. We will see a mix of different models at play."
He added: "People don't want to gulp, they want to sip. People don't want to sign up to huge transformational technologies these days."
So what are some of the advantages of client virtualisation?
Guy Lidbetter, from Atos Origin, said security could be made easier as patches could be applied to the single virtual image, instead of having to update every machine on the network.
But he said the challenge was going to be the range of different virtualised solutions being used within one organisation.
Ian Pratt said the holy grail for client virtualisation was the single image of an OS with different copies of applications being delivered to any device, any where.
And that is what excites me. Imagine having the power of your corporate network, all your data, all your applications available from your phone, your laptop at home and always synchronised, always up to date, always secure and robust.
Guy Lidbetter sounded a warning: "In a completely virtualised estate - you better be sure your network is up to it." He also added: "Applications have to get more intelligent - so you don't have a lock into hardware but deployable to any end device - tablet, pda, laptop or netbook."
And Jim Henrys said that it was paramount to be mindful of user needs. "You cant forget what users' expectations are. If you start taking things away from users that they are used to having - as an IT department you are in danger of losing faith from your users. Users will start to work around it and go external."
So what are the different use case scenarios for client virtualisation? Cost savings is one in terms of licensing, although the panel agreed there was a lot of complexity in terms of application licensing still to work through. But client virtualisation offers a great solution for home and mobile workers, as well as aiding disaster recovery or even corporate moves from one building to another.
Ian Pratt was most excited about the development of hypervisors, or virtual machine monitors. "This enables you to very securely partition a machine and run multiple isolated environments. It enables users to run a personal environment - with your own applications and data, photos etc - and have a business environment, managed by corporate IT. And keep those separate and isolated."
I'm sure we have all experienced the frustration of locked down corporate laptops and desktops - unable to install the software we typically use at home, such as IM clients, iTunes etc. But hypervisor machines seem to offer the best of both worlds.
And this only now possible because of the features and capabilities that come as standard on chips developed by Intel.
In summary, the panel looked at client virtualisation dos and don'ts.
Guy Lidbetter said: "Proof of concept, try it in small user groups, demonstrate you are delivering business value. Don't forget applications; deploying legacy applications into a streaming environment may not work. No matter what it says on the tin. Understand what you are trying to virtualise and why."
Ian Pratt said: "Don't go in thinking what the right technology is. For any organisation different technologies are appropriate for different sets of users. User experience is paramount - make sure you are not degrading but enhancing user experience."
Intel's Jim Henry's said: "Keep an eye on your organisation skillset and ensure your people are educated and up to date and as you change they can change with you."