Desktops from the End User's Seat

Sitting in multiple client meetings this week on the topic of "Desktop Virtualization" it was good to see that many were starting to focus on the key elements we have evangelized about with them over the the past year.  One item that stood out was focusing very hard on overall end-user experience and using an approach to measure it.  Measurement is necessary so we can align the right solution and make that experience better than before.  At the end of the day, building the right solution and being an enabler is what this is all about.  We can have all the bells and whistles we want in the technology, but if we can't position ourselves to sit where the end user is sitting and appreciate what they need, it will all be for not.  

An example of these end users are patients in health care facilities.  They may not be touching the keyboard and mouse, but they are directly affected if a PC is being used in the process of their visit and that PC is not performing as it should.  This may cause them to sit in registration longer and not get treated as fast or even worse, get treated for the wrong thing.  

So how do we make sure this experience is the best we can make it?  The list would be very large, but here are a few things that can help:

• Measurement - assessing what a desktop is doing day to day is critical, and not just performance. Looking at how fast a user can login, open apps, how those apps interact and how fast they communicate.  How fast data comes up and is available for the user to make good use of it.  All of these thing can be captured and then analyzed to put a figure around what may or may not be acceptable behavior.  
• Foundational Stability - A stable technology platform won't necessary make logins faster, but they will make sure they happen with 99.999% reliability.  This doesn't just mean beefy servers and storage, but the right servers and storage built to handle the platforms they are hosting. If virtualization is in play, use servers, network and storage that were made with that in mind.  And never forget about the network outside of the core, at the perimeter.  Even on a LAN, acceleration via either network devices or the right end point device are key.  
• Approach - the process of transforming desktop delivery to make the end user experience better needs to follow an approach that allows for measured success along the way.  It doesn't mean you add in extra complexity or slow the time to deployment, it is there to help keep us all in line.  There are some very cool technologies out there and keeping the eye on the goal at hand can be achieved with a solid approach.

End user applications can't get off the hook here, they need to work better alone and together with other applications.  Building a better end user experience will require applications to be built with the end goal in mind.  This needs to start at development where they take into account the innovative technologies that can be used to deliver the applications and forming the kinds of partnerships they need to make them have synergy.  This is out of most of our control, but there are vendors out there (i.e. VMware and Citrix) that are doing things to try and help the community.  Some application vendors are working hard to offer their products in a web or SaaS format along side of a think client medium.  This is a good starting point that is leading the way to a better application experience.

This isn't a very technical topic I'm covering here (yet), look for each item to be detailed out from a technical standpoint in future blogs.  For more on the foundational stability topics on VDI, check out Matt's blog @ http://matthensley.wordpress.com/.  He covers it in multiple articles on network and storage design.