Real Time Collaboration in a Virtual Desktop Environment
The scenario: In a virtual desktop environment the users have only a thin client on their desks. The thin client (a web browser, Citrix client or Wyse terminal) accesses the business and office applications running on a server in the data center or in the cloud. Technical terms used for this are Desktop Virtualization (VDI, Microsoft Web Access) or Cloud Computing (Google docs and Apps).
In my humble opinion (IMHO) desktop virtualization is great when you want to ensure nobody can copy your customer data and walk away with it. There is simply no way to copy any data on a USB drive if you have no active USB connector. And nobody can steal the desktop PC/Laptop with the data on the harddrive. Customer loving this are banks, financial institutions or any other highly regulated industry or security concerned customer.
The challenge: IMHO current VDI solutions with integrated voice and video don't deliver what's required to make it a success. The voice and video quality is not good enough to deliver a good customer experience. That's a strong inhibitor for broader deployments.
The solution: IMHO the solution is decoupling voice/video from the thin client functionality and bringing it together in the data center. There are various ways how this can get achieved. For example:
1) The simplest method is to place a VoIP desktop phone on the desk together with the thin client terminal. Using the ethernet switch in the VoIP phone the thin client terminal gets connected behind the phone. Great voice quality results.
2) Another way is to run a voice/video softclient on a desktop PC together with the thin client software. To satisfy security needs you want to lock down the desktop PC so that no other SW can run and all USB interfaces are disabled.
Voice/Video and the thin client data then travel over the ethernet to the datacenter. Here the thin client data get connected to the virtualization servers while the real time voice/video packets hit the real time communication servers. Both get connected through Web Services or CTI interfaces.
The implementation using Avaya's technology: Use Avaya's IP phones or Avaya One-X® Communicator to implement great voice/video quality on the end users desk with Avaya Aura™ on the infrastructure side. Use Web services or classic CTI to connect to the servers for the data part using products as Agile Communication Environment (ACE) or Application Enablement Service (AES).
Let me know what your think about desktop virtualization. I like to learn about your experience. Leave a comment here or on my private blog at: http://telecomdisruption.blogspot.com/2010/02/real-time-collaboration-in-virtual.html
I thank all the readers of my previous blog for their input. As suggested i've added a section on how to implement it using Avaya's technology. Looking forward for more input!
Christian von Reventlow reventlow@avaya.com, vonreventlow@yahoo.com, twitter: vonreventlow, Skype: vonreventlow, Linked-In: vonreventlow
Posted 7 Feb 2010 at 08:43 PM
Comments
Great Idea, and something I hope to arrive sooner rather than later. However, doesn't this make you dependent on network connectivity? What if the network goes down? What if I'm at a client site, on an airplane, or other places without access to the cloud? My productivity drops like a rock.
Is there a happy compromise? Perhaps ACE or another virtualized environment that runs on the desktop or just from a USB thumb drive? An extra layer of protection, but still have the ability to work without the network.
Posted 8 Feb 2010 at 08:14 AMGreat Idea, and something I hope to arrive sooner rather than later. However, doesn't this make you dependent on network connectivity? What if the network goes down? What if I'm at a client site, on an airplane, or other places without access to the cloud? My productivity drops like a rock.
Is there a happy compromise? Perhaps ACE or another virtualized environment that runs on the desktop or just from a USB thumb drive? An extra layer of protection, but still have the ability to work without the network.
Posted 8 Feb 2010 at 08:51 AMChristian,
I agree with your article, we are seeing Virtualization take off all over the place for those very reasons. Security, ease of deployment, cost, energy savings, patching, etc.
We have been working with Wyse Technologies for many years and they have a great new environment (WSM) Wyse Streaming Manager that enhances the ability to delivery voice and video to the workstation as well as if not better than a standard PC. We install it in schools all over to provide them access to (2) way classroom learning systems, etc.
And with their release of the new laptop models (X90 series) it's even easier to handle the mobile user.
Looks like a laptop, works like a laptop, but has all the same security and support issues that you mentioned in your article.
~J
Posted 8 Feb 2010 at 05:33 PMI've done a lot of work around desktop virtualization, especially related to serviceability and remote access. There is a lot of power and capability with the technology, but it is precarious. Performance is tricky and depends on the implementation. The key is what to offload to the client's hardware and what to keep at the server. Today's technology can easily offload audio to the client. Video is a different thing, but with a little finesse, it could be done. The key is to virtually map the end user's hardware to the remote server. This allows the server to push things to the client natively rather than trying to "simulate" it on a virtual desktop or requiring special software on the client. Basically, you want access to their video, audio, and input interfaces.
Virtual desktop security is great. I've got an implementation where we have virtualized Windows XP and Windows Vista desktops using VMware. (I have a great mechanism that I use to scale down the storage.) Connections are made using RDP over 256-bit SSL (with hardware acceleration). Authentication is 2FA using Aladdin eToken's with VeriSign certificates on them. All USB devices, except for "Smart Cards", are disabled. No files can be copied or removed from the desktop. The server has access to the client's hardware for acceleration purposes. It is very fast, even over remote SSLVPN connections. Plus, all connections are singular. In other words, one user per virtual desktop. Unlike Citrix, it is impossible to attach to another's session or data because of hardware-based isolation.
I agree with you about the performance. However, we can extend the current technology to fix that. Since VoIP works over an IPSec VPN, we can certainly make it work with a virtual desktop. The key is leveraging the client's hardware. The server just isn't going to be able to pipe that much data back to the client in an efficient manner. Are we offering VDI solutions now? Let me know if you want to see what I've done with VDI. I've looked at Microsoft's RDP implementation. We can develop custom drivers for it to essentially map the user's video card to the server. Using DirectX, we can essentially pipe video and audio back to the client as if the client was getting them locally.
Posted 8 Feb 2010 at 06:59 PM