Today, we’re going to do just that by looking at a proof of concept that Carousel Industries recently did for a hospital client to show how VDI might play out in its environment.

Virtual Desktop Computing Requirements in a Healthcare Environment

“In a hospital, you have nurses and doctors constantly moving from room to room and floor to floor,” says Philip Magnuszewski, Director of Virtualization and Cloud solutions for Carousel Industries. As hospitals make the transition from paper based records to electronic medical records, that means they need access to some sort of computing device wherever they may be.

A nurse, for example, at different times will access a desktop at the nurses’ station, a thin client “workstation on wheels” that can move from room to room, and perhaps a laptop or tablet from off site, such as in a remote doctor’s office. Since these devices are all shared, it means the nurse has to log in, find whatever applications she needs, then log out again when she’s done. It all takes time.

With a VDI solution, the nurse will see the same desktop configuration every time she logs in.

“You could have a thin client in each room. You tap in to authenticate, pull up your virtual desktop, then tap out, go to the next room, tap in again and your desktop is in exactly the same state as you left it,” Magnuszewski says. “I sat across from a nursing director and explained the technology and he fell in love with it. It saves tons of time for nurses that go back and forth from room to room.”

Two-factor Authentication and Single Sign-on

The “tap in” that he mentions could take several forms but typically involves two-factor authentication. As discussed in a recent post, quoting Dave Crockett, IT security solution architect with Carousel Industries:

RFID cards are becoming more popular as the “something you have,” Crockett says. “They have little chips in them and are proximity based,” he says. The devices are popular in healthcare environments because doctors can simply walk up to a workstation and it’ll unlock, awaiting the username and password.

What’s more, single sign-on technology will enable the workers to open up all the apps they need with that single log-in. Similarly, with a single card tap, the user logs out of all applications. Or in the case of RFID, once the user is out of range of the workstation, he’ll be logged out.

Healthcare Providers Connect in the Cloud

Taking the technology a step further, by putting the virtual servers that drive the VDI solution in a cloud environment, health care organizations can make it easy to provide access to workers wherever they may be.

Maybe an affiliated physician practice needs to access patient data. It’s just a matter of giving authorized users a username and login. Ditto for remote staff, such as call center workers, who can now be located anywhere.

In short, VDI technology is building a foundation for a private cloud infrastructure that enables healthcare organizations to truly deliver IT as a service to whoever may need it.

To learn more about how VDI and cloud technology can help your organization become more productive and effective, contact Carousel.

How EMC VSPEX Complements VMWare’s vCloud Suite

VMWare’s  vCloud Suite is intended to make it easier for customers to build private clouds by giving them all the software they need in one package – vSphere virtualization software, vCloud Director for automated provisioning, and a host of networking, security, operations and provisioning tools.

But software is only one piece of the cloud puzzle, Magnuszewski says; there’s also hardware to consider. Toward that end, Carousel’s partner EMC a few months ago announced VSPEX, a reference architecture for how to build a complete private cloud, including not only software but server hardware, networking and storage components.

Previously, the options for how to build a private cloud environment were limited. “You could roll your own using best of reed products and hope everything worked together,” he says. Or customers could use the Vblock platform, announced a few years ago by VMware, Cisco and EMC. “Vblock is expensive, with an entry point around $1 million, and relatively inflexible. It’s Cisco networking, EMC storage and VMware, period.”

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VSPEX is intended to fill the gap between the roll your own option and the high end Vblock solution, Magnuszewski says. It includes reference architectures for various combinations of hardware and software, including all the major virtualization software, any Intel-based server – from companies including Cisco, Dell, HP and IBM, among others – and networking gear from Brocade, Cisco, Juniper, Dell and HP. EMC is, naturally, the “preferred” storage vendor.

A Better Roadmap to the Private Cloud

“For customers, instead of guessing and putting some things together that may or may not work, they’re getting a roadmap from a software standpoint of what needs to be implemented,” he says. “It’s a go from zero to the cloud in 30 seconds kind of thing.”

For its part, Carousel will be putting together hardware and software packages based on the VSPEX architecture and getting them tested and certified, further simplifying the process of building a private cloud for its customers. Carousel is busy testing vCloud Suite, initially with Juniper network gear, HP servers and VMware.

“We are looking to get a reference architecture that’s stamped and verified by EMC,” Magnuszewski says. He expects the solution will cost about 40% less than Vblock. “It’ll be private cloud for the rest of you.”

In the meantime, Carousel is helping customers implement vCloud Suite on whatever hardware and networking combination they may have in mind, he says. While Juniper is a Carousel partner, “we’ll work with Cisco and Brocade,” he notes, and any server hardware.

“We’re doing a lot of strategic consulting with customers who just want help getting from point A to point B,” Magnuszewski says. “There are just so many benefits to getting to that pure cloud environment.”

If you’d like to get started on your own private cloud, contact Carousel.

Cloud Foundry Adds More Flexibility to Cloud Environments

In the opening keynote on Monday, new VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger announced the company’s Cloud Foundry platform-as-a-service offering will go into production in the fourth quarter. He also said the company is prepping a private cloud version of the offering that should be available next year.

Cloud Foundry gives companies the ability to provision pools across multiple clouds from a single pane of glass, McGrath says. Initially the product works with clouds from VMware and Amazon.

“The implications are great, especially for customers who do a lot of test and development,” he says. “They may have different hypervisors to test on different platforms. Now they can test and manage them from a single pane of glass.”  What’s more, customers can take the same application and run them in multiple clouds, which gives them greater flexibility in terms of application deployment and helps prevent vendor lock-in.

VMware Unveils vCloud and Horizon Suites to Simplify Cloud and Mobile Deployments

In keynote addresses, VMware also harped on a simplicity theme, unveiling two product suites that are intended to provide everything customers need to build cloud data centers and promote workforce mobility.

The first is vCloud Suite, a package that includes all the components required to build a cloud-enabled data center, McGrath says. The package includes vSphere virtualization software; vCloud Director for automated provisioning; vCloud Connector for transferring workloads between public and private clouds; along with networking, security, operations and application provisioning tools.

“It includes everything a customer needs to build a fully functional automated cloud in one package,” he says.

The new Horizon Suite is intended to give customers everything they need to address requirements of their mobile users. It includes tools to manage and deliver applications to end users, who will see the same workspace and set of applications no matter what device they may use. Users will also be able to install applications from an app store, without involving IT.

IT, meanwhile, gets tools to centrally manage the environment, including the ability to define policies on a per-person basis, as opposed to having policies tied to specific devices. The tools work with Android and iOS devices as well as XenApp applications – again promoting the idea of choice and flexibility, McGrath says.

Veeam Delivers Discovery, Recovery Solution for Exchange Server

Another new product that caught his eye is Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Exchange, which gives users visibility into backups from their virtual Exchange servers. “It allows you to instantly recover a single email or an entire mailbox from a virtual Exchange Server,” McGrath says. Previously such solutions were cost-prohibitive, effectively making them available only to large enterprises. But smaller firms also need the capability, such as to meet various regulatory requirements around archiving and e-discovery.  The Veeam offering is included at no extra charge in the Veeam Backup & Replication product.

Atlantis Takes Home Best of VMworld 2012 Award

Finally, we’ve written previously about Atlantis, a new Carousel partner whose ILIO software dramatically reduces storage requirements in virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) environments. Perhaps you didn’t believe us when we said the software reduces storage requirements so much – often by upwards of 90% – that it helps companies make the ROI case for VDI.

Well maybe this will convince you: Atlantis won the Best of VMworld 2012 award in the desktop virtualization category. Congrats to the entire team at Atlantis and thanks to Eugene McGrath for all the VMworld reports.

To learn more about how to ensure success with VDI, we talked with Phil Magnuszewski, Director of Virtualization and Cloud Solutions for Carousel, who quickly pointed to three potential pitfalls.

Perform Due Diligence on VDI Use Cases

“Performing analysis to determine which use cases will be a good fit for VDI is probably number one,” he says. “Do your due diligence up front.”

Users who sit on the corporate LAN and use only a small number of applications are good candidates, because you want a workload that is fairly consistent and static. The finance and customer service groups are good examples, as they use the same handful of applications day in and day out.

Similarly, lab environments such as in educational institutions are a “home run” for VDI, Magnuszewski says. Rather than put expensive client machines at each student’s desk, they can instead all run off of powerful servers in a data center.

Pick That Low-hanging VDI Fruit First

When you’re just diving in to VDI, maybe looking for an application to pilot, go for an easy use case first. “Pick something that you know is a good fit and should be successful, then grow to other uses cases from there,” he says. “Don’t try to roll it out to the entire enterprise out of the gate. Pick areas where you’re confident it’ll be successful and build on that.”

Prepare the Network for Added VDI Traffic

A crucial element to the success of a VDI deployment is to ensure the underlying network can handle the additional traffic. Every single user request now has to travel over your corporate network to a faraway server. It all adds up. And nothing will torpedo a VDI deployment faster than users suffering with poor response time.

“Take a close look at what your network looks like today and what it’ll have to look like 12 to 18 months from now,” Magnuszewski says. “Think about the high bandwidth applications such as video that people are adding now. You’re going to have to seriously look at redesigning your network.”

One historical VDI issue that Carousel has successfully resolved is cost. As we covered previously, Carousel has partnered with Atlantis Computing for its ILIO software, which addresses one of the biggest cost drivers in VDI deployments: storage. The ILIO software optimizes and deduplicates traffic from virtual desktops to back end storage devices, decreasing requirements in most cases by 90% or more.

With cost off the table as an issue, and bearing in mind the potential pitfalls to avoid, it’s time to put VDI technology to work for you. By all means, feel free to contact Carousel if you need a hand.

How Storage Drives Up VDI Costs

Atlantis has some innovative software that addresses what is “by far” the biggest cost in virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) deployments: storage. So says Phil Magnuszewski, Director of Virtualization and Cloud Solutions for Carousel.

Think about, say, 1,000 individual desktops churning away, each generating lots of I/O calls to the system’s disk, he says. In general, performance is quite good because the Windows operating system is engineered to work well with local disk. “But when you aggregate them and have the random I/Os handled in a server, to get the same IOPS [input/output operations per second], you have to spread data across many more disks,” Magnuszewski says. As a result, companies wind up buying lots and lots of storage for their VDI deployments.

The Atlantis Solution: I/O Optimization for VDI

Atlantis ILIO software dramatically reduces storage requirements in VDI environments by optimizing all those I/O requests. Here’s a good explanation of how the Atlantis ILIO technology works, from the company’s web site:

When the Windows operating system generates disk IO, it optimizes that IO so that data is read from and written to disk sequentially so that it can maximize overall system performance. In VDI environments there is no direct connection between the desktop operating system and any physical disk (with local or shared storage). Therefore, the disks are shared amongst other guest operating systems, so the Microsoft Windows operating system assumption of exclusivity is no longer valid. As a result, the hypervisor converts sequential IO into random IO (the IO Blender effect) that decreases storage and desktop performance and in turn reduces the effectiveness of any available storage cache modules. With desktop virtualization, the IO blender effect is more pronounced due to the fact that the number of desktops per physical server is much higher than server virtualization.

Atlantis ILIO converts the small block random IO generated by the hypervisor into larger blocks of sequential IO to send to storage, increasing storage and desktop performance, and maximizing the opportunity to deliver all requested data locally from memory.

Atlantis ILIO also uses data deduplication technology to reduce storage requirements and caching to improve performance for end users.

“Because of the way they optimize traffic from host to storage, I can cut down back end storage requirements by upwards of 90%,” Magnuszewski says.

A Changing ROI Equation for VDI Deployments

Clearly a change that dramatic in storage requirements has a big effect on the ROI and TCO (total cost of ownership) equations for VDI. And having Atlantis as a partner means Carousel can now help customers make the desktop virtualization business case more compelling to the CFO.

“Anyone who is taking a look at VDI, or who has thought about it but hasn’t been able to position it effectively internally because of capital costs, we can help with that,” Magnuszewski says. “I’m going to increase performance for VDI and get the cost down from $1,000 to closer to $500 per desktop. Now the total cost of ownership is something most CFOs will be excited about, especially when you take into consideration the other benefits.”

Companies can now use money budgeted for PC refreshment and put it toward VDI deployments instead. And given the performance boost Atlantis software brings, customers with existing VDI deployments may be able to expand to more desktops than they previously thought possible.  When you consider the multiple benefits VDI delivers to the enterprise, this financial game changer makes the decision to migrate to virtual desktops easier than ever.

If you’ve had visions of virtual desktops but balked at the cost or performance, it may be time to revisit. Contact Carousel to see how we and our partner Atlantis can help.

To get a handle on these trends, we talked with Phil Magnuszewski, director of virtualization and cloud solutions for Carousel Industries. To understand the concepts, he says it’s helpful to start with a refresher on what server virtualization is all about.

Understanding Storage and Network Virtualization

The goal of any kind of virtualization is to build a pool of resources that are abstracted from the underlying physical environment. For servers, that means the operating system and applications are abstracted from the physical CPU, memory, I/O cards and other attributes of a physical server. “By virtualizing that environment, I build a pool of compute resources that I can carve up in any way that makes sense for my applications, taking into account performance, high availability and the ability to move things around based on the load on different applications,” Magnuszewski says.

The same concept applies to storage and network virtualization, although they deliver different benefits.

Storage Virtualization Implementation and Benefits

With storage virtualization, the idea is to pool various storage resources – everything from a high-end EMC array to a low-end HP storage system – and make them look like a single pool of storage. “I put a hypervisor in place and make all of my storage resources look like a single storage resource that I can carve up based on the demands of my data and requirements of their applications,” Magnuszewski says.

Such pooling has historically been possible only if you use a single vendor’s storage arrays. But now companies such as F5 Networks and DataCore Software are coming out with solutions that encompass multiple vendors’ storage systems.  “With a hypervisor in front, I can now tier my storage based on the requirements of the application and leverage storage from multiple vendors,” he says.

The way Magnuszewski sees it, the solutions not only provide more flexibility and agility – just like server virtualization does – they can also help extend the useful life of existing storage systems. “If I bought an HP or IBM storage array years ago, chances are the drives are still good but the performance maybe isn’t what it needs to be,” he says. “But if I just want to put user data or maybe images or something like that on those systems, that’ll work fine.”  Then companies could use their high-end arrays to handle applications that require high performance.

Getting to Know Network Virtualization

The network virtualization area is a bit more fuzzy, Magnuszewski says, with vendors taking varying approaches – and with good reason. “The challenge with the network is you’re still dealing with physical connections. On paper I could say I’m going to pool a set of networking resources, but I still need a switch to plug into server A and server B, and have redundant paths and such,” he says. “I haven’t seen anyone come out with a third party plug-in for networks to provide true hypervisor functionality.”

One approach is software-defined networking, which allows a network to be configured through software – an idea which Magnuszewski points out is not exactly new. But today vendors are accomplishing it via technologies such as OpenFlow, an open source API that enables multivendor switches and routers to be programmable. OpenFlow and the SDN concept was the focus of the Open Networking Summit last fall, host to some 25 demonstrations of the technology, according to Network World.

As for pure network hypervisors, though, Magnuszewski is correct that there are few options, although one vendor is getting some play, as SearchNetworking reports:

Probably the best known is the Nicira solution, which is a distributed software suite that creates scalable, fully featured, isolated virtual networks that are completely decoupled and independent from the underlying physical network. Nicira’s solution can work across any physical network and is compatible with any server hypervisor. Nicira’s open, programmable approach not only delivers Layer 2 and Layer 3 networking, it also supports Layers 4-7 services within virtual networks.

As Magnuszewski says, we’re not entirely sure how you “completely decouple” networks from the underlying physical infrastructure, so let’s color this space still in the nascent stage. Nonetheless, it bears watching.

At Carousel we get a lot of questions from customers about the BYOD (bring your own device) trend.  One topic that comes up over and over is how to securely enable employees to interact with the corporate network from any device while allowing them to be as productive as possible.  In this regard, Virtual Desktop, or VDI, is a powerful solution – albeit one that is part of a  comprehensive, holistic solution and does not exist in a vacuum.  We had a chance to catch up with Phil Magnuszewski, the Director of Cloud and Virtualization Solutions at Carousel, to discuss how VDI empowers mobile workers that now utilize multiple devices, and how VDI relates to other components of a comprehensive BYOD and mobility strategy.

Enabling Multiple Virtual Desktop Endpoints Per User

As we’ve discussed on this blog in the past, deploying VDI for users is a project that must be well planned for and effectively executed.  We won’t go into too much detail here, but defining “desktop use cases” for employees is a critical first step in order to determine which users will be transitioned to Virtual Desktops and in what order.  It is also important to define and deploy the necessary enhancements to the network infrastructure required to support the increased load generated by VDI.

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Once this is completed and your virtual desktop infrastructure is in place, you will be ready to capitalize on one of the great benefits of VDI – extending it to mobile BYOD devices like tablets and smartphones.   Magnuszewski says, “This is the easy part.  Users can download a VMware or Citrix app from the Apple App Store or the Android Marketplace and install it in minutes.  Configuring the back end with server details is straightforward and when complete the apps will connect with a secure SSL connection and users are up and running.”  According to Magnuszewski, “Upon accessing the network with their mobile device, users will be presented with the exact work environment they would see on their desktop computer in the office.  No need to learn new navigation, install apps, or get up to speed on new operating environments.  There is no more effective way to get users up and productive on their mobile devices.”

Virtual Desktops:  A Key Component of a Holistic Solution for BYOD

While VDI is an ideal solution for enabling employees to effectively utilize their mobile device on the network, a BYOD and mobility strategy should be thought of in a holistic manner in which VDI is one important piece.  In order to plan effectively from a wider, systems perspective, other components of a holistic solution include:

Mobile Device Management (MDM)

In order to maximize network security, especially in a BYOD environment, smartphones and tablets should be configured with software and settings (independent of VDI) to reflect the corporate security policy and that’s where Mobile Device Management comes into play.

Modern smartphones and tablets come with the capacity to remotely deploy security layers and connections on employee devices without having to possess or own the technology.  This provides companies with a unique opportunity to on-board their employees, install all necessary technology and authentication and integrate corporate policy directly onto the device remotely and confidently.

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When a network user attempts to connect a new smartphone or tablet to the network for the first time, the system will recognize the device and user and redirect the device to download and install all necessary security protocols and applications the corporation has defined.  This includes things like mandatory passwords, sleep settings, unsuccessful login protocols, mobile VPNs, VDI apps, etc.  Another benefit of this on-boarding process is it allows the company to push training and policy information to the end user as their devices are configured.  This security layer is independent of the VDI solution that allows the user to access their work environment and be as productive as possible while ensuring that their mobile devices are adhering to corporate security and access policies.

Mobile Device Access Control

The next layer of network control related to consumer devices allows for more refined, centralized administrative and content-related management of all network users and devices.  Referred to as Mobile Device Access Control, these solutions provide insight into which user, using which device at what location is accessing what applications on the network.  This technology allows the IT team to define rules and access control around each of these potential variables.  For example, “User A accessing the network from Branch office X on his tablet is provided with Internet access and these five network resources and applications, but these websites are restricted, and these three applications cannot be accessed by a tablet.”

This level of granularity provides the IT team with the control necessary to minimize exposure and the capability to manage consumer devices with the same level of confidence they were used to when every device was owned by the company and connecting via ethernet.

Wireless Network Infrastructure

The BYOD trend continues to stress wireless networks in businesses.  With the additional burden of multiple devices per user, VDI support for those devices, VoIP, Video and streaming media, it is important to take the time to assess the capacity of your wireless network infrastructure and plan for growth.

By thinking about a mobility and BYOD strategy in a holistic, systems-wide manner businesses can not only enable employees to be as productive as possible on multiple devices via Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, but ensure the security of the network and provide for business continuity with Mobile Device Management and Mobile Device Access Controls.  To discuss your mobility and BYOD plans in more detail with our experts, contact Carousel today.

These definitions are known as “use cases,” meaning a common set of functional requirements for a given set of users. Whether it’s contact center agents or sales people, each group within a company has certain software that they use, including operating systems and applications, along with hardware requirements, from desktops and laptops to tablets, printers and input devices such as smart card readers.

The idea is to capture what these folks do on a routine basis and make sure all the features and functions they need are encapsulated in the virtual desktop infrastructure environment. Common uses cases include contact center, sales, field reps, marketing, executives, offshore contractors, administrative and finance. Each will require a different set of applications and, in some cases, hardware.

When defining the use case, you need to consider not only the user’s role in the organization but the location in which they work, which could be in an office, at home, on the road or some combination. You’ll need to ensure that all users are able to access the VDI environment with sound performance from wherever they may be.

Also consider the types of applications they use and how often they use them, which will help determine how much bandwidth and processing power you need and may also affect software licensing. If some groups use custom applications, that has to be accounted for.

This exercise should help you determine which applications are candidates for desktop or application virtualization and which are not. At the same time, you’ll have a head start on an inventory of required end user equipment, storage, bandwidth and high-level architectural requirements.

To learn more about how to plan for a VDI deployment, contact Carousel to have one our experts help out.

But the point of this post isn’t to make everyone feel old. Rather, it’s to assess where virtualization is today and what trends we’re seeing now that the technology is “mature,” as they say. To do that we talked with talked with Phil Magnuszewski, director of data center technologies at Carousel Industries, who quickly rattled off a number of trends he’s seeing with respect to virtualization.

SMBs Latch on to Virtualization

With enterprises long ago having latched on to the virtualization wagon, now the technology is headed downstream to small and medium sized businesses. “We’re seeing folks who traditionally haven’t virtualized going from 0 to 100 miles per hour, from totally physical infrastructure to virtualizing every single application they have,” Magnuszewski says. The same goes for state and local educational institutions, which typically lag technology trends, he says.

Virtualizing Mission Critical Apps

Midmarket and smaller enterprise companies, meanwhile, are largely done virtualizing the low hanging fruit, meaning print servers, DNS servers and such. “Now they’re being cautious but they’re testing with mission critical applications like SAP and high transaction Oracle or SQL databases – applications that are the lifeblood of a company,” he says. “We’re seeing a lot of testing in that space.

Getting a Handle on Virtualization Management

Companies that are well along with virtualization are now dealing with management headaches as their environments get ever larger. And they are getting larger, Magnuszewski says. The same kind of server sprawl that companies saw with their physical servers is happening all over again with virtual servers, and even more so because VMs are so easy to spin up.

“Management of the virtual environment is something we’re really seeing start to take off,” he says. “How do I understand where all my VMs are located, what resources are allocated where, and how do I plan for capacity?” If companies have hundreds or even thousands of VMs running, it’s a challenge to ensure the environment is not only operating properly but is optimized for best performance.

The good news is vendors are starting to address the issue. VMware is pulling together several tools under its vSphere Operations Suite, for example, providing a dashboard that provides a simple view of the performance of the virtual environment. And Carousel is now trialing Hyper-V virtualization products from Microsoft that will be included under the Systems Center management umbrella.

Desktop Virtualization Comes of Age

Virtualization is also poised to (finally) see some traction on the desktop, Magnuszewski says. It’s particularly hot in the education market as vendors are finding ways to bring the up-front cost down (stay tuned for more news on that). But even in commercial markets, “folks who have been talking about it for the last 18 months are moving forward with pilots and rollouts now,” he says. That includes Carousel itself, which has a pilot with about 115 users testing out several use cases, including for corporate personnel, sales people and engineers. “We’re going to end up using it,” he says. “It’s a matter of which use cases make the most sense.”

If you need help making sense of your virtualization strategy, contact Carousel; we’ll be glad to help.

Attendance Up, at Least on Paper

For one thing, attendance was up this year from both the sponsor and attendee

Looks like businesses are done kicking the unified communications tires and taking action

All Done Kicking The Unified Communications Tires

While the weather may have kept the show floor from getting overcrowded, Aubee sensed a different attitude in the attendees he talked with. “Instead of people kicking tires they were saying, ‘I have this problem, can you help me?’” he says. “For the first two years, we had a lot of people asking ‘what is unified communications‘ and ‘does it have any value’. Now they’ve gotten to a point where they know what it means to their business and they are either ready to trial it or are in the middle of trials.”

Bye, Bye Blackberry

Three years ago, when a customer talked about UC, they meant sending emails and forwarding phones to “500 field guys with Blackberries, that was the unified client.” Fast forward to 2012: the Blackberry is all but gone, the talk is of virtual desktops and advanced information sharing, and everybody has Androids and iPhones. But customers are struggling to manage devices they don’t own and are concerned about security and how to deliver on the promise of desktop virtualization to all these devices.

“They came in with very pointed issues,” Aubee says. “We have this list of technologies and these problems. How can we pull together a cohesive solution that avoids building tech silos and meets our business requirements?”

Hot Tech Talk

In terms of which technologies were hot, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) was certainly one, he says, noting it dovetails into the whole bring your own device (BYOD) and mobile security discussion. “Everyone is comfortable with server virtualization, but want to know how to use VDI to help secure these other devices that are coming to market,” Aubee says. “Do we support a custom tablet app or do we VDI enable what we have and just push it out and control it that way?” He expects to see a lot of action in this area in the next year.

Video was likewise hot, as attendees are now seeing the value in visual communications – this after 4 or 5 false starts over the years. “It has to do with the move to remote workforces,” he says. “How do I have a team meeting when I’ve got nine guys who are hundreds of miles apart? How do I have what feels like a true team when all these guys are like voices in a box?” With improvements in video codec technology and the ability to control bandwidth use over wide-area networks, now companies are seeing video as truly useful, he says.

If you were at Enterprise Connect, let us know what you thought were the highlights of the show in the comments below. And if you have any follow-up questions, feel free to contact us.