2007 was the year of first-forays into Operating System virtualization on the desktop. The most notable products in the desktop space are from VMWare and Parallels.

There are two approaches to virtualization on the desktop. The first is a kind of “Citrix redux” where users log into a remote server. But now instead of multiple sessions on the same OS, each user gets a self-contained virtual OS. This approach has some advantages, principally those brought about due to isolation: less chance of a virus, mischievous user, or runaway processes taking out the whole workforce. There are also disadvantages here because we lose one of the main benefits of thin-client computing, which is the reduction in labour found by distilling all desktops and applications down to one OS. The higher cost (compared to a Citrix/Terminal Server) will keep it out of reach to smaller companies currently using thin-client computing.

The other approach to the virtual desktop is desktop-on-desktop computing. This approach at first seems redundant, but it achieves one thing that has been the bane of IT support departments for years. Desktop virtualization allows us to untie the OS from the hardware. This gives us the ability to backup, restore and move the user’s own environment to different hardware in the amount of time that it takes to move the file. So if the CEO’s laptop fails two hours before his or her trip to India, we can copy the file (or if the hard disk is damaged, restore from the most recent backup) over to any other laptop, and send them on his way. Many companies lock down the user’s desktop so tightly that there is no desktop to speak of, and any computer can be swapped with any other with no loss of data. For many organizations this is not the case, so protecting each unique personalized desktop is important – even if it’s just the President’s iTunes or photo collection. In the corporate environment this kind of desktop virtualization works, and it can work well.

There are some serious limitations in the current batch of products which make adoption in a Windows environment a tortuous prospect, although hopefully these will be resolved in 2008. One of these limitations includes major problems with multimedia support. You can’t burn to DVD from within the virtual desktop. Audio on the virtual desktop mysteriously stops working for no reason. USB support is tenuous – printers don’t always work and digital cameras have a tendency to blue screen the virtual computer. In other words, as soon as we get to multimedia or power-user status, it just can’t keep up. And currently we can forget about real dual-monitor support from within the virtual desktop.

The picture starts to look better as soon as you move to an OS X Leopard machine. Parallels and VMWare on OS X have proper support for multimedia, USB and DVD burning. Still no real dual-monitor capability, but the normal functionality is there. So we can outfit the CEO with a Mac (the shame!) and let him or her use their familiar XP desktop environment with ease. There’s even a chance that they might like the Mac so much that they’ll want to drop Windows altogether – it could happen in 2008, but that’s another story altogether.

Tags: desktop virtualization, green it, it trends, operating system, virtualization technology