Microsoft has announced that it will cease to provide support for Windows XP in 2013. Many companies have happily retained Microsoft’s XP environment and never took the step to Windows Vista. Migrating to Windows 7 will inevitably entail a considerable change of hardware, because PCs older than 3 years do not generally have the requisite performance for the job. Gartner named virtualisation as the second highest priority of CIOs for 2011. The end of support announced by Microsoft should certainly encourage companies to make the switch to virtualisation. To date, only 25 % of French companies have done so for some of their teams and 17 % plan to do so in the next 18 months1. Sylvaine Dekeyrel, Head of Virtualisation Solutions at NEC IT Platform Solutions, draws on her expertise to identify five good reasons to switch to virtualisation.

1. Offer a better quality of service to employees

Over the years, companies have observed the difficulties faced by their users if a hard disk or the power supply of their PC should fail. Every time this occurs, several hours of work are lost, sometimes even affecting the productivity of the entire company.
In an infrastructure where workstations are virtualised, these problems disappear because virtual PCs run on host servers. The user therefore has a thin client terminal, without a hard disk or fan, that is highly reliable and conducive to a comfortable work environment because it is silent.
The advent of the BYOPC phenomenon (Bring Your Own PC) has been facilitated by workstation virtualisation. The majority of solutions not only offer the possibility of using thin client terminals and fat PCs, but also PDAs, smartphones or tablets.

2. Increase the availability of employee workstations and applications

Some will retort that a server can also fail, and this is of course true.
However, new virtualisation technologies partly allow us to get around this failure event by making a new server available on which the VMs are restored. This does entail a few minutes of downtime and a partial loss of the data that was being processed at the time of the failure.
However, there are now virtualisation solutions on the market that can anticipate a failure and take preventive action. For example, an alert reported on a virtualisation server, e.g. due to a failing memory, will automatically cause the virtual machines to be migrated to a different server, even before the first server fails. These solutions guarantee a high availability of virtual workstations for employees and a continuity of service for IT teams. This type of solution is recommended where a sensitive activity may otherwise be affected.

3. Reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) of a pool of virtual PCs with a convincing return on investment (ROI)

Reducing the TCO and ensuring a rapid ROI are two goals that are tricky for a CIO to achieve with workstation virtualisation. Nevertheless, an IDC2 study published in February 2011 showed that it was possible to achieve an ROI of 372 % over a period of 3 years, reaching the break-even point in 12 months.
Alongside the notable improvements that workstation virtualisation brings, such as centralised administration of the equipment, reduction in local interventions and greater convenience for users, some CIOs may opt for a solution that offers dynamic management of resources on an “as needed” basis. An increase or decrease in the number of VMs required causes virtualisation servers to be started up or shut down automatically. This is where companies can make noticeable savings in electricity consumption, e.g. overnight, as host servers that are not in use are switched off.
By contrast, a sudden demand for virtual PCs will automatically prompt new servers that are able to host them to be started up and therefore quickly meet the requirements of new users (visitors, trainees, etc.).

4. Better security for the company

Workstation virtualisation ensures better security for the company on several levels.
Thanks to the use of thin client terminals, the user no longer has any local data. Use of a roaming profile allows this user data to be saved centrally and therefore backed up much more easily.
What is more, some VDI solutions can filter the access of virtual machines and even terminals according to the profile of each user – an additional level of security that prevents the risk of hacking.

5. More flexible and efficient management of the equipment

The switch from managing a physical to a virtual equipment pool requires IT teams to take a major inventory of the needs of users (depending on their profile, hundreds of applications may be used or not within the company). This sometimes leads a company to select a combined solution: workstation virtualisation + application virtualisation. This is because it may be better to streamline the virtual workstation by virtualising certain applications that are difficult to manage, update or maintain.
This inventory is indispensable as, in combination with a powerful administration tool, it will enable configuration and maintenance to be highly automated and allow the company’s stock of virtual workstations to be updated gradually as necessary.

To conclude, the NEC virtualisation expert advises companies to ensure that the selected workstation virtualisation solution has technical support from just one supplier: servers, storage, terminals and virtualisation software. This will avoid having the storage manufacturer, the network manufacturer and the software publisher all intervening separately, as is very often the case.

1: Source IDC survey
2: IDC study of NEC Virtual PC Center (IDC Vendor Spotlight – February 2011).

About NEC Corporation

NEC Corporation is a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies that benefit businesses and people around the world. By providing a combination of products and solutions that cross utilize the company’s experience and global resources, NEC’s advanced technologies meet the complex and ever-changing needs of its customers. NEC brings more than 100 years of expertise in technological innovation to empower people, businesses and society. For more information, visit NEC at www.nec.com.

About NEC IT Platform Solutions

NEC IT Platform Solutions provides businesses with servers, storage, software and virtualized desktops that enable its customers to maximize business efficiency and performance and improve profitability. It works with its customers to deliver tailored, innovative solutions from a broad portfolio of products and solutions with short ROI and lower TCO.
For example, NEC’s green, virtualized servers and desktops provide the resilience and flexibility necessary for successful and agile enterprises. In addition, NEC IT Platform Solutions provides enhanced high availability solutions such as the NEC Fault Tolerant Servers and NEC Express Cluster Software.
NEC IT Platform Solutions has its global headquarters in Paris, France for the EMEA region and works in conjunction with NEC’s businesses worldwide. For more information, visit www.nec-itplatform.com
NEC is a registered trademark of NEC Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Other product or service marks mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners. ©2011 NEC Corporation.

Contact NEC  

NEC France
IT Platform Solutions Division
Annick Reyngoudt
Tel : +33 (0)6.89.49.06.77
Annick.reyngoudt@emea.nec.com
www.nec-itplatform.com 

OXYGEN pour Nec IT Plateform Solutions
Karène Vigoureux
Tel : 01 41 11 35 42
kvigoureux@oxygen-rp.com

PR-25102011.pdf