For most places in the Northern Hemisphere spring has officially arrived, with flowers popping up and birds chirping and with Earth Day last week to remind us to do our part in taking care of the environment. At Microsoft, we have several well-known earth-friendly programs, but one from customers is a little lesser known ? they?ve been reducing power consumption with desktop virtualization and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) in particular.
To back up a bit, Microsoft?s overall goal with desktop virtualization is to address business challenges that customers are facing today, including the proliferation of devices driven by consumerization, the ongoing need to secure corporate data and enabling the move to Windows 7 in the most efficient manner possible. Microsoft Desktop Virtualization delivers on each one of these challenges by providing the flexibility to work everywhere, while making sure that compliance and continuity requirements are not compromised. As always, we have a keen eye to simplify management and delivery wherever possible to make IT?s job easier and service delivery better. Microsoft?s VDI solution is one of the technologies that can help address these challenges by virtualizing the operating system. As a quick refresher, VDI enables users to remotely access their personalized Windows desktops and secure all of their data hosted on servers. VDI does require that the user be connected to the network and a VDI desktop can be accessed from a number of different device types as long as IT has configured the appropriate access.
VDI can deliver real benefits for most companies when applied to the right scenarios and it definitely has a place in most organizations. It just so happens that one of those benefits is it often provides significant power savings for companies; and while I don?t expect businesses to choose VDI on that reason alone, it is a nice side benefit, especially as we do our part to conserve energy. Here?s what our customers are saying about how they?re using VDI ?
Bank of Hawaii ? Virtualizing to Avoid Disaster
Recently, Bank of Hawaii came to us with a unique business problem ? they needed to update some of their older PCs in their mission critical Operations Group so that they could ensure that if disaster struck they were protected by reducing the risk of business disruptions. Microsoft helped Bank of Hawaii to retain those computers by reducing the local workload and updating their technology infrastructure to include VDI.
With the help of VDI, employees have the ability to securely access their hosted desktops and the important data from anywhere. The ability to access data from anywhere is seen to be greatly beneficial in the event that there is a disaster and employees are unable to access their office or the bank?s facilities become inaccessible. With VDI employees are still able to get their work done remotely with a similar experience as being in the office and the bank is able to avoid business disruption. Bank of Hawaii said, ?We hope a disaster never comes, of course. But if it does, we?re prepared, thanks to our use of the Microsoft VDI Standard Suite.?
Additionally, they find the ability to access their data from the hosted servers is useful because it allows them to view their information from any computer. This means that workers have more flexibility to work remotely. This ability to work remotely cuts down on their carbon footprint is a way for employees to be more ?green.?
Telecom Italia ? VDI Reuses the Old and Reduces Energy
Telecom Italia looked to us, in partnership with Citrix, to help them consolidate and replace over 20,000 desktop computers that were a bit old and not functioning up to their standards. The fact that 5,000 employees had two computers each exacerbated the issue. Some users used one computer for office automation applications such as Microsoft Office PowerPoint, and the other to run network applications that required a higher level of security. This approach for enhanced security resulted in double maintenance fees, power consumption, and space requirements.
They needed to make a change for their dealers and they wanted to do it in conjunction with implementing a more cost-effective way to support their network. The answer for them was VDI with XenDesktop on Hyper-V, because it allows users to access desktops that are running as virtual machines on servers in the data center. They access these hosted desktops from thin-client computers that are always connected, and their IT staff are able to manage all the virtual machines from a central console.
The ability to manage centrally was only one benefit that Telecom Italia realized. Additionally, with the implementation of thin client computers, they are seeing a reduction in the amount of energy used and has seen this as a great way to implement Green IT into an organization. Telecom Italia told us that they ?expect to reduce power-consumption-related costs for [their] desktop computers by more than 50 percent, even when considering the additional power consumption for the server farm.?
Empire CLS Worldwide Chauffeured Services ? Chauffeurs Save Time, Money and Energy
Unlike Bank of Hawaii and Telecom Italia, Empire CLS Worldwide Chauffeured Services didn?t need to replace aging machines, but just wanted to feel that they were improving the reliability of their IT infrastructure, as well as reduce the amount of time and energy used to manage servers and desktop computers. Microsoft designed an IT plan for the company, which included Windows Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V, and Cluster Shared volumes along with VDI.
The company found that VDI offers a tremendous value by providing a high performance virtual desktop platform while reducing the cost of deploying virtual desktops. Combined with innovations such as Dynamic Memory in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Hyper-V and Application Virtualization technology, they are reducing the amount of hardware required to deploy VDI. IT also reduces training and onboarding costs, since Microsoft?sVDI is built on the platform and tools they are already familiar with.
VDI also reduces costs and power consumption even more when it was used with Hyper-V, Dynamic Memory, clustering, and Remote Desktop Services. Empire CLS Worldwide Chauffeured Services said ?with Hyper-V and Dynamic Memory, we've been able to consolidate our data center footprint by more than 50 percent, increase server capacity by about 35 percent, and reduce power costs by 33 percent.? On top of that, they are seeing the same reduction in the cost of deploying VDI and maintaining it with their ?support calls [going] down by 75 percent.? They said overall ?we are winning on all fronts.?
Bank of Hawaii, Telecom Italia and Empire CLS Worldwide Chauffeured Services are the latest customers who are seeing significant improvements in their businesses when implementing VDI. Be it reduction in management time, costs or energy use, all found that VDI helped their business run more efficiently. To find out more about these companies experiences please read the case studies online. Additionally, if you have any questions on how VDI can help your business please visit the Microsoft site VDI page or leave a comment below.
Jessica Paré Leelee Sobieski Teri Hatcher Lauren Bush Natalie Zea
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