Just before the holidays, I recorded an interview with Mike Rose, associate research analyst for IDC’s Enterprise Virtualization Software program.  In this 15-minute session, Mike discusses the Virtual Client Computing Taxonomy report he recently published, including the virtualization and delivery methods he identified and guidance to organizations considering implementing virtual client computing.

The interview covers:

• Mike’s definition of Virtual Client Computing, which is a framework of solutions that allow organizations to address the limitations they experience with distributed desktop environments.  Mike notes there is a growing ecosystem of technologies and solutions that can address the needs of a diverse user base.

• Three types of virtualization software: 
  Application, which encapsulates an application, so when you deploy it on a local device it is not hard-installed on that client operating system.
  Virtual user session, which has been around in the form of Terminal Services.
  Desktop, which uses virtual machine software or a hypervisor to decouple a client environment from the client hardware. Users get their own client environment, their own set of applications and their own data.  The user experience is the same as if it were running the desktop environment locally.

• How server-hosted desktops leads to Desktops as a Service (DaaS), where IT is increasingly becoming a service provider to the organization.  As Mike says, “the idea that you can provide Desktops as a Service now to users makes that model applicable to many different vendors.  For instance, a telco could host those applications in those operating systems, because once you decoupled that OS it doesn’t matter where it runs.  As long as a user can get access to it via remote interaction or some kind of delivery mechanism, then you’re providing the IT resources that the end user needs."

• Two delivery models:
  Remote interaction, taking keystrokes from a local device and sending it out to the server to be processed, and sending the output from the server to the local device.
  Remote streaming, which is delivering executable blocks of data.

• How everything is moving away from total distribution towards a server environment because of the benefits associated with centralized manageability, security, disaster recovery and backup.

There are a number of options for playing/reading the interview.  You can either launch the multimedia version (Flash video format which includes slides and audio) or listen the audio only version.  You can also download a copy of the complete transcript and get a copy of Mike’s taxonomy report.