After my first blog, I received a few comments focused about user-installed applications and how there isn't much talk about them.  Faisal posted a comment that stated he was doing a pilot with XenDesktop.  Right now the biggest complaint is that users can't install their own "personal" applications  and this is one of the big questions regarding virtual desktops.  We had a few comments from others wanting to know the same thing (some really good posts). Well, here are my thoughts

With a physical desktop model, users could essentially do just about anything to their workstation.  How much of a good thing was this?  It makes the user happy, but what are the associated risks? 

1. Managing the endpoint became a nightmare. Hard to know what application conflicts will ensue with these unknown applications.
2. Introduction of viruses, malware, spyware, etc.  Many of the applications users install are freeware/shareware from untrustworthy sites.  If it is on the desktop, does it now have the freedom to inflict damage to the rest of the network?
3. Workstations became bloated and eventually slowed to a crawl resulting in IT having to completely rebuild the workstation.
   

Let's now move to the desktop virtualization model.  If we are using hosted virtual desktops, that typically means the desktop is now operating within the confines of the data center.  If you allow users to install applications onto their hosted virtual desktop, in my opinion, you might as well just open the doors to your data center and let anyone in because that is what you are doing if you let users install anything.  Doesn't that concern you?  If not, try telling this to a security person within the organization. After they recover from their stroke, they will tell you why this is not a good idea.

Now I'm not saying that we can't and shouldn't allow user-installed applications, I just want to make sure everyone understands the risks with doing such a thing.  With the 3rd party solutions that are out there (AppSense and Atlantis Computing were mentioned in the comments from a previous blog post), my question would be

1. How do we protect the data center from unknown apps.
2. How do we keep the virtual desktop optimized and supportable. I don't want manage more bloated desktops By the way, this makes a great case for a Bring Your Own Computer (BYOC or BYOPC) model.
   

I do just want to add one more point.  I've been using a hosted virtual desktop for about 2 months now with a shared disk, so any changes I make (application installs) go away after reboot.  Truthfully, I haven't had much of a problem.  I did need to download and install a few freeware tools to help me finish a project, but I only used those items for about 2 hrs.  The nice thing, in this instance, was after I rebooted, they were gone.  I don't plan on using them again. And if I do, I'll just re-install. Of course this isn't an application I need. 

So the final question is should we really allow user-installed applications to persist or should we have a process in place where IT can quickly virtualize and deliver these applications to the respective users through a standardized application delivery approach?   

Daniel - Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/djfeller
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On the run up to VMworld 2009, there seems to be an increasing amount of activity on the subject of user personalization in VDI. Gartner has written about dynamic workspace includng user personalization as a key element of the stack. What does it mean? What is user personalization all about? And, where does it need to be? Let's take a closer look.

Aren't all PCs supposed to be personalized? What's the big deal?

Personalization of the desktop is really all about making the working experience for the user as effective as possible. Sure this means users have photos of their family or favorite sports team as their wallpaper, but personalization is more than that! Think about all the things you have done to make your personal computer your own - from toolbar settings to your email signature, to applications you have installed since being supplied with your machine. Then think about how IT is able to manage the user-specific component of this machine - corporate policy, user access rights, PC lifecycle management, patching and security updates. It's a constant struggle between IT who needs to manage the PC and the user to wants to personalize it. The more personal the PC, the less control IT has over that machine and the more expensive it becomes to manage.

Does desktop virtualization help or hurt the cause for users?

The emergence of desktop virtualization provides a real opportunity to address this long-standing struggle. Those assets of the desktop that are common to many users, including corporate OS and apps, can now be standardized and automatically delivered 'on-demand' to users from a central source. In fact, the only way to get scalable and cost effective virtual desktops is with single instance management of the corporate OS and applications - as with Citrix XenDesktop. A 'corporate' OS can be dynamically provisioned into a virtual image, and likewise, corporate applications can be delivered on-demand onto the virtual desktop as needed. The result? A scalable, low-management, low-storage, low-cost corporate desktop for all employees. The third key component of this scalable virtual desktop is personalization - so that you can make each user's virtual desktop personal.

So, how do you pick the right solution?

Based on my interactions with customers successfully implementing virtual desktops, I have come to a conclusion that there are 5 key requirements that you need to consider for delivering personalized virtual desktops:

1. Starting with managed user profiles or equivalent - A system that can store user settings and personalization changes. A system that can provide an easy and fast way to manage the settings for users. This is included as part of XenDesktop and gets you started with your personalized virtual desktops.
2. Getting On-demand 'personality' - To increase the responsiveness of the desktop and logon, only provide parts of the user personality required by the user at the time when needed. Why load what a user is not going to use?
3. Allowing user-centric configuration - This may be a bit counter-intuitive to personalization; however, role based configuration is a critical component of making every user's desktop 'personal'. It starts with configuring which applications a user has access to. XenDesktop (with XenApp as an application management system) offers the ability to control the applications. IT may need more granular control - such as what printers users will need and what drives they can access.
4. System self-healing from user errors - To be able to automatically roll back to pre-configured user settings in case any personalized changes made by zero conflict centralized configurations.
5. Ensuring visibility - Giving IT the ability to see into the user environment and solve potential problems before the user gets involved creates a continuously improving desktop estate as well as reducing costs

How do you get it going?

We have included #1 and parts of #3 in Citrix XenDesktop. To address other requirements that cover comprehensive enterprise-level control and management of personalization, I have seen customers successfully use the combined solution of Citrix XenDesktop and AppSense Environment Management to good effect. In addition, AppSense Environment Management is also able to offer Enterprise-level scale to cover not just your virtual desktops but also your physical environments, or environments where you may be using multiple technologies such as XenApp published/hosted or streamed apps to physical PCs and XenDesktop.

So when you hear about 'user personalization' or 'user profiles', look deeper into the details of what's being discussed. Successful (low-cost, high adoption) VDI requires the ability to use a single instance of OS and apps on demand across an entire company. I have seen that customers have successfully combined Citrix XenDesktop with AppSense Environment Management to ensure user adoption across all platforms for thousands of users, and it's being considered as the most complete solution for delivering personalized virtual desktops.

What to expect in coming weeks?

I expect to see more point solutions and some technology acquisitions and OEMs. However, they have two fundamental shortcomings, in my opinion:

• They are built only with the perspective of user personalization. Any user personalization product needs a solid desktop virtualization solution.

• They solve one of the requirements I listed above and may not be enough to address all of enterprise requirements.

As you are doing your assessment on personalization, I encourage you to review this list of requirements that I have seen in successful implmentations of virtual desktops. Also, I'd love to hear your comments on other requirements around personalization that I haven't covered here.

NetScaler Virtual Machine

Today, Citrix announced a virtual appliance version of their NetScaler Application Delivery Controller - the NetScaler VPX, the first of its kind. All of the functions that traditionally were performed in the datacenter can now be performed in the domain of virtual machines. Load balancing, application acceleration, security and offload functionality are now available as a XenServer virtual appliance.

Industry's first Virtual Load Balancer

No other vendor offers this type of software as a Virtual Appliance. By making advanced web application delivery functionality available as a virtual appliance, NetScaler VPX drives convergence of virtualization and networking. In the continued movement toward simple and affordable convergence, NetScaler VPX makes sophisticated application delivery functionality available to any size organization. This breaks down deployment barriers for all types of organizations.

What used to run on a proprietary piece of hardware now runs on any hardware that supports virtualization. Because there is no physical appliance to ship, install or move VPX can be installed at a moment's notice, on any server running XenServer.

The challenge

• Check out The Great NetScaler VPX challenge and get $10,000.
• The Tech Preview will be downloadable from citrix on May 18th.
• If you are running VMWare, you need to run Xen - and why wouldn't you, Xen is free.
  

NetScaler VPX

It's powerful - AppExpert!