The Transformation of Virtual Desktops

In business, companies that shift from simply building solutions to designing based on customer needs can completely transform an industry. I can’t recall the last time I waited in line at a bank or at Starbucks. Consumers now demand products and services designed for how they work, play, and live. Netflix, Airbnb, Uber, PayPal—all exemplify businesses created to transform traditional models. They achieved this by improving the consumer experience. Ultimately, they changed their entire industries, much like Hive Fabric VDI is changing virtualization.

It’s been over two decades since companies like VMware showed the world that multiple virtual servers could run simultaneously on physical servers. Virtual Desktop solutions first hit the market around 2006. Like Virtual Servers before them, a VDI (Virtual Desktop) approach offered many benefits. For instance, it extended PC lifespan by turning them into VDI clients. It enabled customers to buy inexpensive workstations when needed. It also allowed managing a few virtual desktop images instead of hundreds or thousands of physical workstations, saving the business significant IT support costs. From a security perspective, data remained behind the firewall in the datacenter. Lost devices were no longer the security threat they once were.

The Early Challenges of VDI: Why Expectations Fell Short

Unfortunately, the promise and expectations of virtual desktops from a first generation of products often fell short. They either didn’t live up to expectations or created unwelcome cost and complexity. Many companies bought into the promise of simplicity and cost savings for server and endpoint hardware. However, this vanished rapidly once customers factored in the additional infrastructure required for management. The excitement around VDI quickly dissipated. It became cost-prohibitive due to infrastructure costs, increased management overhead, and a lack of available specialists. Early customers who invested in VDI, believing it would cut costs, faced increasing costs. This was not to mention the cost of training, hiring, and retaining certified experts.

Then, there was the challenge of network connectivity. Due to the immaturity of protocols like RDS, weak network connectivity significantly impacted performance. It also hindered the promise of the Mobile Workforce.

What’s Changed? The Evolution of Hive Fabric VDI

That was nearly two decades ago. It wasn’t a bad idea, no different than investing in a taxi medallion two decades ago was a bad idea. So, what’s changed? The needs of the consumer have changed. Businesses have literally and figuratively transformed how they deliver services. From an operational perspective, businesses now focus on driving out cost, complexity, and overhead. They also aim to reduce dependencies on endless proprietary products and services. No different than Apple did for mobile phones. Today’s CEOs tend to focus on “the problem, not the solution.” They design and transform their companies’ products and services. This impacts how business partners interact, how employees achieve productivity, and how consumers live their lives.

When the founders of HiveIO looked at the virtual desktop market, they saw an endless sprawl of complexity. Infrastructure requirements were created by a handful of multi-billion dollar giants. Like other giants before them, these companies survived by convincing customers that the answer was the “next bolt-on feature.” This is completely counter-intuitive to the direction business is heading. These giants will soon face the same challenge as Telecom giants today: reinvent yourself or face extinction.

Hive Fabric VDI: Simplicity, Efficiency, and Innovation

With Hive Fabric, HiveIO has delivered a solution built to address today’s business needs. The Hive Fabric solution captures and leverages thousands of data points in near real-time. This allows it to make data-driven decisions. It reduces human-driven decisions, ensuring optimal end-user performance. Unlike first-generation virtualization solutions, Hive Fabric provides all core features required to deliver Virtual Server (VSI), Virtual Desktop (VDI), Software Defined Storage and HCI from a single install.

The market is now reevaluating the benefit and ROI of its initial virtualization solution choices. Many reasons why customers either didn’t choose or weren’t pleased with their VDI solution have been addressed by Hive Fabric VDI.

• Simplicity: Hive Fabric’s focus on simplicity removes the requirement for certified experts.
• Cost & Complexity Reduction: Hive Fabric’s single install of VSI, VDI, and Software Defined Storage reduces the cost and complexity of licensing.
• Hardware Agnostic: Hive Fabric’s agnostic approach to hardware and clients extends existing hardware use. This saves refresh dollars for more pressing needs.
• Enhanced Performance: Hive Fabric’s ability to turn RAM into storage delivers high-performing virtual desktops. This dramatically improves End User Experience.
• Optimized Storage: Hive Fabric leverages, manages, and shares all available storage across hosts for workloads, dramatically reducing cost.
• Improved Management: Hive Fabric’s Visualizer provides a 360-degree view of datacenter components. This empowers administrators to significantly reduce mean time to resolution.
• Scalable Infrastructure: Hive Fabric’s clustering and message bus strategy enables scale without requiring separate management infrastructure.
• Better User Experience: Hive Fabric leverages the latest release of Microsoft’s RDP protocol. This provides a better end-user experience and decreases bandwidth consumption.

At HiveIO, we don’t want you to stand in line. We don’t want you to get certified. Re-use your existing infrastructure, deploy commodity servers, simplify your day-to-day. We want you to spend your time on your business, not on your infrastructure. Experience the future with Hive Fabric VDI.

George Nealon, CRO