Matrix42 Report on Desktop Virtualization

Atlanta, Georgia, March 25, 2011 – At this year’s CeBIT, Matrix42, the leading supplier of Workplace Management solutions, conducted a survey* on adoption of virtualized desktops. The study showed that desktop virtualization is one of the most popular IT trends, with the majority of companies either adopting or considering. Yet, 76% of all respondents admitted to concerns in their organizations relating to a virtualization – mainly with regards to the deployment and management of the virtual environment.

The study found that a significant number of organizations are actively considering adopting desktop virtualization: 80% of large organizations, 76% of medium-sized organizations, and 58% of small organizations are planning to virtualize their desktops. On average, they plan to virtualize over half of their organizations’ desktops, with smaller companies planning to virtualize a higher percentage of desktops than larger companies.

Reasons for Virtualization: Save Money and Maximize Flexibility and Mobility
Asked for the reasons for the desktop virtualization 29% of the respondents stated they believed that they can realize sustainable software and hardware cost savings. Almost a quarter (24%) are driven by an increase in flexibility and mobility, while 18% want to improve their performance, and 17% believe they can reduce management costs with the virtualization.

At the same time organizations are looking forward to the substantial benefits of desktop virtualiza-tion, they see many challenges as well. Top among those challenges are the perceived need for separate tools for managing the physical and virtual environment, and the time and effort to deploy and manage virtual desktops. These concerns are significant enough that 76% of organizations say they are inhibiting or delaying their plans for desktop virtualization adoption.

Matrix42 experts advise on carefully examining the different aspects of licensing, infrastructure, management processes, trainings, etc. In each case sustainable savings can be realized only when management structures are adjusted and tools are optimized.

Virtualization Check List
Even though the plans for desktop virtualization are well under way for most organizations, the Matrix42 survey shows that many questions are still unanswered. The survey report details a few valuable pieces of advice that will help with your desktop virtualization initiative:

• You should consider for which employees in your organization a desktop virtualization makes sense. After all, virtualization may not be suitable for every situation or every employee. You should consider the kind of work they commonly do, the desktop configurations they use, and the individual requirements they may have – for example if they need to be particularly flexible or mobile.
• Concerns over using separate tools for managing physical and virtual desktops should not deter your organization. Instead, you should seek out solutions like Matrix42 that can manage both physical and virtual devices from the same console. This will save your IT department countless hours of efforts spent on managing a virtualized desktop environment.
• It should be clear that a move to a virtual desktop environment does not eliminate the need for management. This is a common misconception, but in reality the management of virtual clients is more important than ever before. Organizations should carefully document the management requirements of your organization’s situation and research software tools that will help you with the virtualization of desktop environments.

* In total, 86 people took part in the survey. 57 percent of the respondents work for organizations with fewer than 100 desktops, 25 percent work for medium-sized organizations, and 18% work for organizations with more than 1,000 desktops.

The complete survey results can be downloaded here.

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