Viva Virtualization: Redefining the Desktop
The rise of non-Windows operating systems in the enterprise and the easy availability of powerful hardware is killing the "one OS for one box" model. This is a good thing because it allows users to easily work with, test on, and develop for multiple operating systems. And the best way to accomplish this is with virtualization.
The rise of non-Windows operating systems in the enterprise and the easy availability of powerful hardware is killing the “one OS for one box” model. This is a good thing because it allows users to easily work with, test on, and develop for multiple operating systems. And the best way to accomplish this is with virtualization.
You might think that virtualization is just for servers, but you’ll find that virtualization can have a profound impact on the desktop as well. This month, we’ll start diving into practical use cases for virtualization on the desktop and discuss how it’s a key technology for revolutionizing the way that we work with our computers on a day-to-day basis. Server gurus, worry not, as I’ll be digging into virtualization in the datacenter next month.
To fully understand why virtualization is taking hold so quickly in desktop computing, we must first realize the status quo that’s in place now—namely, one OS for one box. In the days before multi-core computing, cheap RAM, big hard drives and, largely, before the Internet, this made a lot of sense; companies standardized on a set of hardware, an OS, and application set, and went on their way.
In today’s world, however, this just doesn’t work. And it’s your fault. Let me explain…
With the rise of non-Windows operating systems in the enterprise, such as Mac OS X and the many flavors of Linux—particularly Red Hat, SUSE, and more recently Ubuntu—and the appearance of cheap, powerful machines from a…
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Comments on "Viva Virtualization: Redefining the Desktop"
Excellent intro to Virtualization. I am just getting into it, and this makes very good reading. Clearly VMs are the machines of the future, and the future is here.
Well written, I to am just getting into it and loving it. I can’t wait to learn more. Doris Dunn, the Department Chair for Computer Information Services at Skagit Valley College, Mt. Vernon Washington has been using virutalization heavily much like the professor at Central Washington and it has had a major impact on the amount of knowledge that can be obtained from the classes offered.
Excellent article, highly recommended. Only I wish you could explain in detail things like hypervisor et al. By the way, I am a start-up’s build master and I have 40 build machines (all Virtual). So I am another class of people who would be very interested in tracking the progress of this wonderful innovation.
Well, I don’t know, sure this is true for IT environments, but other business/disciplines – possibly not. To me, virtualisation for the desktop is a maintenance management measure – recovery is as simple as deploying a new VM, nothing to fix….just make sure user profiles are centralised too….
The way I see it, this (virtualisation) spells the end of the desktop OS – it is becoming as easy to change from one to the other on a whim…and when Bill demands a few hundred dollars so we can beta test his new OS, have to relearn stuff again because he changed the pcitures and buried stuff we need in seven layaers of redundant windows “are you sure? Are you really, really sure?” and take the time to save files, programs, install new Vista, Windows8 or whatever then reload our programs in again and find some don’t work….who needs it?
The only room for the desktop OS is something completely new – an OS that grabs a CD or a USB device and says, “do you want me to install this XYZ thingy – and does so successfully everytime, an OS that calls you on your mobile and says ‘There is an important email from John do you want to hear it?”, an operating system that somehow reflects the fact that we are in the 21st. Century – way past “2001 – A space odyssey”. Surely we can do better than the distinctly 1995 stuff we deal with now?
Good comment. I completely agree and rather like your definition of a “completely new” OS. :-)
You explain (pretty well :) several uses of *virtualization on the desktop* (the VM runs in the user system). Maybe it worth noting that this is rather different from what is generally understood by *desktop virtualization* (the VM runs in servers and remote protocols are used to access the desktop from the user system).