Desktop virt roll-outs: Upfront pain for long-term gain

How can IT departments build a business case for desktop virtualisation? Look at the numbers, says Robin Birtstone - but make sure you see all of them. Ultimately, companies are unlikely to fund a desktop virtualisation project until the numbers look good. How can you build a good return on investment case for virtualising …

[Anonymous Coward]

Why oh Why

do the bozos who run our IT insist on running the weekly AV check starting at 08:00 on a Monday morning now that our desktop systems have been virtualised?

For this ineptitude they get a Mega Fail aka Grenade....

[Tim #3]

Why oh Why 2

Why does el Reg keep plugging desktop virtualisation without highlighting all of the problems with it?

[SImon Hobson]

Why oh Why 3

Why do commenters keep slagging off ElReg for it's coverage ;-)

Actually I thought they are doing a reasonable job of covering the downsides as well as the benefits. If you read this article, you will see things like "these costs should not be underestimated".

[mikejs]

Why oh Why 4

But the article is still things like "How can IT departments build a business case for desktop virtualisation?", which assumes that they should be doing this. i.e. that VDI is something IT departments should want. The Reg has been relentlessly plugging VDI for quite a while now, for no obvious reason.

Having looked into it, there seem to be no major problems that it "solves" that are not better dealt with by managing the desktop pcs properly in the first place (thereby avoiding the storage and networking headaches that VDI causes). It may have a niche role to play somewhere, but it certainly isn't suitable for the general case that the Reg keep trying to make out that it is. It's a solution looking for a problem.