Facilitating informed decision making for desktop virtualizationDell™ Desktop Virtualization Blueprint Assessment

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Executive summary

Incorporating an economic assessment into desktop virtualization planning can provide organizations with key information for effective decision making. Evaluating the costs and economic implications of IT decisions can help organizations accelerate the return on investment (ROI) and control ongoing operating expenses.

The Dell™ Desktop Virtualization Blueprint Assessment, offered by Dell Desktop Virtualization Solutions (DDVS), provides a deep understanding of current desktop, application, and device usage and incorporates a comprehensive economic assessment into project planning. By combining detailed quantitative data with qualitative information, the Blueprint Assessment helps facilitate the effective decision making required for a successful desktop virtualization implementation.

This paper presents an in-depth view of the Blueprint Assessment, examining key components and describing how the Blueprint Assessment is integrated into desktop virtualization planning, design, and deployment. As

Successful implementation of desktop virtualization in an enterprise requires a clear understanding of how employees use client systems. By identifying the applications that employees use, the resources their client systems consume, the performance needed for specific tasks, and more during the planning phase, IT groups can optimize provisioning of virtualized and non-virtualized systems, providing employees what they need to do their jobs and ensuring no resources are wasted.

the paper shows, the Blueprint Assessment plays a vital role in helping organizations maximize the value and reduce the risks of desktop virtualization while also enabling them to optimize the entire client computing environment.

Introduction

Desktop virtualization offers organizations an effective means of increasing worker mobility and flexibility, improving security, simplifying IT management, and reducing desktop-related costs. To successfully implement desktop virtualization in the enterprise, IT groups must understand how employees access computing systems. They must discover what applications employees use, how much of the system resources are typically consumed, what level of performance users need, and the context—the time of day and locations—in which networks and device types are used.

Without a clear understanding of the current user environment and application usage, IT groups could inadvertently over - or underprovision desktop resources for some users. They might waste resources or

burden employees with desktop performance that is inadequate for doing their jobs.

Conducting a proper evaluation will help IT groups make sound decisions for determining which specific user-group desktop environments should and should not be virtualized—desktop virtualization will not be right for every use case in an organization. Organizations need detailed information about and analyses of their desktop and user-group environments so they can make the technology and business decisions that will let them maximize the value of desktop virtualization for the enterprise.

A thorough and accurate economic assessment is also an important part of the desktop virtualization planning process. Without accurate information, some organizations might anticipate a poor ROI and decide against desktop virtualization. Others might proceed past a proof of concept, only to be disappointed later. A detailed total economic assessment can help organizations make informed decisions that will maximize the ROI while minimizing the cost of ownership.

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The Dell Desktop Virtualization Blueprint Assessment provides the in-depth understanding of current desktop, application, and device usage required for successfully implementing desktop virtualization. A key component of the multiphased design and implementation services offered by Dell Desktop Virtualization Solutions (DDVS), the Blueprint Assessment (Figure 1) collects detailed information on current desktop application usage to facilitate informed decision making based on quantitative data. Supplemental interviews of desktop users provide qualitative information that can fine-tune analyses and help anticipate future needs. A comprehensive assessment of both capital and operating expenses can then help business managers select the right path to desktop virtualization.

The Blueprint Assessment can help maximize the value of desktop virtualization, enabling organizations to select and implement a solution that meets their precise IT and business needs. It also helps reduce risks by providing better economic and performance predictability, from proof-of-concept and pilot studies to production. At the same time, the Blueprint Assessment can help organizations improve asset discovery, increase the accuracy of software licensing, and optimize the configuration of all client systems—whether or not those systems are virtualized.

Preparing for data collection

Engage—Participating in a DDVS Workshop

Typically, the first step in a DDVS engagement is a workshop in which the Dell team discusses the possible approaches and benefits to desktop virtualization, and solicits information on an organization’s business and technical goals.

Assess—Taking a representative sample of systems and user types

The Blueprint Assessment process is next. The Dell team collects both quantitative and qualitative data, and analyzes results, to help ensure that the organization can make informed design and implementation decisions.

The Dell team and the organization decide how many users and systems to assess. In some cases, taking a representative sample, which includes multiple systems for each type of user, can provide an efficient and effective means of gauging usage. If an organization takes this approach, it must be sure to provide a sufficient number of users and systems for each usage type to give an adequate picture of how systems are used. For more comprehensive results, the Dell team can run the Blueprint Assessment for all users at one or more locations.

Figure 1. The Blueprint data collection tool captures in-depth information on system usage

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Capture—Recording the “digital footprint”

To capture the digital footprint of the existing user environment, the Dell team provides either a virtualized or a physical appliance:

• Virtualdatacollectionappliance The virtualized appliance runs software from Liquidware Labs in a VMware® ESXi virtual machine within the organization’s infrastructure. Using a virtualized appliance can help simplify and accelerate deployment of the tool since no on-site deployment of a physical server needs to be scheduled.

• Physicaldatacollectionappliance Organizations making their first foray into virtualization might prefer to have a physical appliance connected to the infrastructure. The Dell team uses a Dell PowerEdge™ server running the data collection software.

The data collection appliance pushes software agents to the physical desktops using Microsoft® Systems Management Server (SMS) or Active Directory® Group Policy Object (AD GPO). Those agents place a thumbprint in the header of every TCP/IP packet so the appliance can collect detailed usage information for each system included in the analysis. The agents can be used on remote systems that are not constantly connected to the network. In that case, the software will continue to collect information

and send information back to the appliance when each system is next connected to the network.

The agents run transparently on client systems with minimal performance impact. In addition, the Dell team can set the agents to live only for the duration of the Blueprint Assessment.

Collecting data

Quantitative data

The data collection tool collects detailed configuration information for the systems assessed, including:

• Installed operating system

• Processor make, model, and speed

• Memory size

• Storage capacity

• Network interface card used

• Peripherals attached

The tool assesses how the systems are used, collecting information on:

• System uptime

• User login time

• System and user processor consumption

• Disk input/output per second (IOPS)

• Network interface card (NIC) percentage used

The tool also collects detailed data on application usage, such as:

• Application names and versions

• Number of executions

• Load times

• Total running times

• Graphics intensity

The tool offers a breakdown of usage trends for each application running on each evaluated system. The data collection process is completely automated and can be run for two to four weeks—sufficient time to provide a comprehensive view of usage trends.

Qualitative interviews

In addition to collecting extensive quantitative data, the Dell team conducts interviews with a sampling of user groups. The interviews help provide qualitative information on the user experience and users’ needs while also providing insight into future requirements. For example, if several users report plans to work more frequently from home in the future, the organization might need to consider network modifications to ensure that employees can still use desktop virtualization and achieve the performance they need to do their work.

Analyzing data and defining user types

Once data collection is complete, the Dell team procures the data and conducts a proprietary data analysis developed by Dell. Analysis includes identification and documentation of applications

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accessed by each surveyed desktop. In addition, it identifies the desktops that are a good fit for virtualization based on their configuration, peripherals, usage model, network latency, and other criteria. The analysis also highlights the desktops whose configurations, usage models, graphics-intensive workloads, peripherals, or network latency issues make them a poor fit for virtualization.

As a key part of the analysis process, the Dell team divides users into distinct desktop-user categories. Defining user types is essential for determining whether certain user types are truly a good fit for desktop virtualization and for ensuring the design will provide sufficient hardware and software resources to support those users. Determinations are based on factors such as the number of concurrent applications used; amount of processing performance, memory, and storage capacity required; and degree of desktop image personalization required.

User types include:

• Basicusers—Task workers, ranging from call-center agents to nurses, who are often required to enter information, access text-based applications, complete forms, or do repetitive tasks. These workers require fast access to a small number of applications.

• Standardusers—Workers who use e-mail, typical office productivity applications, multimedia software, and Web browsing for research or training.

• Premiumusers—Advanced knowledge workers whose office applications are specific to a job function or have a high multimedia requirement. These workers might be designing graphics, editing presentations, performing complex mathematical computations, or creating other content.

Assessing the economic impact of desktop virtualization

Once data is analyzed, the Dell team assesses the potential economic impact of desktop virtualization. The Dell team uses current information from the organization’s finance team to ensure that any calculations are based on real-world figures. Using the Dell Economic Assessment Tool, the Dell team calculates the total cost of ownership (TCO) and ROI for several possible desktop virtualization scenarios. For example, an organization could measure the economic impact of having Dell manage the virtual desktop environment compared with managing the environment in-house.

The Economic Impact Assessment can help IT groups make a business case for desktop virtualization and help set

expectations for potential savings. It enables executives to make decisions for moving forward that are based on both technology and business considerations.

Delivering the results and providing recommendations

The Dell team presents the Blueprint Assessment results and the team’s recommendations through two deliverables:

Blueprint Assessment Report

This detailed report identifies the findings from data collection, the qualitative interviews, and the Economic Impact Assessment. As part of this report, the Dell team identifies which types of end users are the best fits for desktop virtualization.

Executive Debriefing Presentation

The Dell team provides an executive summary, presenting the findings of the Blueprint Assessment Report and Blueprint Assessment Recommendation Report. As part of this presentation, the Dell team identifies possible next steps for desktop virtualization.

Realizing the value of the Blueprint Assessment

The Blueprint Assessment process provides crucial information for desktop virtualization projects. Organizations can determine which user environments to virtualize, which applications

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to include in the virtualized desktop image, and whether the network is ready to support desktop virtualization. They can use the information gained through the Blueprint Assessment to select a

Optimizing desktops across a large global enterprise with the Blueprint Assessment

Challenge

A large global enterprise decided to work with DDVS to explore desktop virtualization as part of its effort to refresh its fleet of more than 40,000 aging PCs. The company wanted to drastically reduce the capital and operating costs associated with desktop computing, improve the accuracy of software licensing, rationalize the total number of applications in use, and optimize desktops for future application changes.

Solution

After conducting a multiday workshop with the organization’s IT managers, the Dell team initiated a Blueprint Assessment to facilitate data-based decision making. Initially the Dell team ran a Blueprint Assessment on 4,800 systems used by 8,000 employees in the United States. The employees, who were selected by random sample, comprised one-third of all U.S. staff. Through the Blueprint process, the Dell team discovered that some employees used multiple systems—not all of those systems were included

in the initial sampling. To avoid omitting key applications used on those non-sampled machines in desktop images, the organization and the Dell team decided to run a second, more comprehensive Blueprint Assessment that covered all systems and users located in four U.S. sites.

Benefits

Using the data collected through the Blueprint Assessment, the Dell team made a number of key findings that will help the organization optimize desktop environments for both virtualized and non-virtualized systems. First, the Dell team helped determine which users were the best fit for desktop virtualization. Some employees who use specialized applications or require intensive compute capabilities will continue to use traditional desktops and workstations.

By evaluating application usage patterns, the Dell team and the organization also identified a rationalized core set of applications to include in a virtualized image. With a clear understanding of how users are actually using their systems, the Dell team helped determine how virtualized and non-virtualized systems should be configured for current and future applications.

The assessment also will help significantly reduce licensing costs. The organization now has concrete data on how many employees actually use certain applications. The IT group no longer has to install and license numerous applications that are not used.

The Blueprint Assessment also provided back-end infrastructure insights. For example, by assessing the latency between systems and application servers, the Dell team identified the best geographic locations for the IT infrastructure that would serve desktop environments.

Next steps

Based on the information gathered through the Blueprint Assessment, the Dell team is launching a desktop virtualization pilot program that will help stabilize the desktop image and confirm the right configurations for client systems. The organization also has approved a global Blueprint Assessment, which will cover all users and systems in all global regions. Dell will likely host the desktop virtualization infrastructure to help maximize the potential savings achieved by the organization.

pretested and validated Dell Integrated Solution Stack (ISS) or to design a customized virtual desktop solution that precisely fits current needs and provides the flexibility to accommodate change.

The Blueprint Assessment process can deliver significant value for organizations no matter how many—or how few—of their desktops they decide to virtualize. For example, it can help organizations with:

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• Detailedassetdiscoveryandinventory Compared with typical client management solutions, the Blueprint Assessment can provide much greater detail about the hardware and software of client systems. The assessment often uncovers details of “rogue” client devices being used to connect to corporate networks, as well as details related to user-installed and Web-based applications in use.

• AccuratelicensingWith more detailed information on the actual applications installed and the degree to which they are used, organizations can make more informed decisions about which applications to deploy, and they can improve the accuracy of licensing. Organizations could significantly reduce the number of applications deployed for each user, reducing licensing and support costs.

• OptimizedclientsBy accessing detailed system information and analyzing usage, organizations can streamline the configuration of systems—including non-virtualized systems. In some cases, organizations might discover that users do not need all of the processing power, memory, or hard drive capacity with which their systems are equipped. In addition to informing future purchase decisions, these insights can help organizations to redeploy existing systems to the most appropriate users.

Taking a key step toward optimizing desktops

The Dell Desktop Virtualization Blueprint Assessment combines advanced technology with extensive expertise in desktop virtualization implementation to help organizations maximize the value and minimize the risks of desktop virtualization. By integrating analyses of quantitative data, qualitative surveys, and economic information, the Blueprint Assessment gives organizations the certainty they need to move forward with desktop virtualization and other efforts to optimize their desktop environments.

For more information

To learn more about the Dell Desktop Virtualization Blueprint Assessment, contact your Dell representative or visit:

www.dell.com/virtualdesktops

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September 2011