Posts Tagged ‘BYOD’

2013 may FINALLY be the year of VDI and BYOD

Posted: January 14, 2013 by Keith Townsend in PC & Server Hardware, Virtualization
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1025dx Windows 8I am thinking that maybe 2013 will finally be the year of virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI) enabled BYOD.  This is not because of some fancy new feature in VMware View or Citrix XenDesktop but due to a new feature of Windows 8.  I said a LONG TIME ago that Windows 8 should be a hypervisor based OS.  I was close in my prediction.  One of the great features of Windows 8 that hasn’t gotten much attention has been that it’s a Type 1 (bare metal) hypervisor.  This means that basically, just like Hyper-V the hypervisor is native to the operating system.  You can think VMware vSphere but with a GUI.  A better comparison would be with XenClient which I wrote about here.

One of the major flaws in VDI has been its lack of support for offline support.  The foundation of the traditional VDI solutions has been based on screen streaming technology which requires an always on network connection.  This has limited the usefulness of the technology for mobile technologies such as laptops.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed but a lot of laptops are sold into the enterprise.  VMware and Citrix try to address the issue using two different approaches.

VMware adds what’s basically VMware player as part of the View Client.  This allows a user to checkout an offline version of the virtual desktop.  Citrix released a different type of VDI client called XenClient.  XenClient is actually a bare metal hypervisor which also allows the user to check out a virtual desktop.  View is actually a pretty decent solution but I haven’t performed much research on the success or failure with offline desktops in View.  The largest drawback for XenClient has been its lacklustre hardware support. Not many software companies have the ability to rollout a general perpose desktop OS that can support virtually every laptop on the market.

This is where the fortunes of BYOD, Windows 8, VMware/Citrix can meet.  Microsoft has done general purpose operating systems well, forever.  With a built-in hypervisor, users and organizations can purchase virtually any Windows 8 Pro based laptop and have the native capability of supporting the enterprises VDI solution.   The VDI vendors have the opportunity to add the much needed value add management layer and integrate their streaming solutions.

This could be a boon for BYOD.  End users can just bring in their Windows 8 laptops to work, have a certificate installed, download their VDI image and their off in running.  Administrators would have a wide range of options for providing the VDI instances.  For thin clients the VDI session can run on the backend servers.  For workstations and laptops that processing can be done at the local machine.  This could strike a balance between performance/cost for hosting VDI sessions on expensive infrastructure such as enterprise class disk and server load.  The management software could have checkpoints for the certificates so organizations can revoke rights to enterprise data when an employee is terminated.

I’m probably getting excited over nothing.  2013 will more than likely be another year where VDI is just around the corner.  Or maybe ……

 

What does Samsung’s loss to Apple mean for Android in the enterprise?

Posted: August 25, 2012 by Keith Townsend in Network, Security
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Credit CNET

I’m wondering out loud what Samsung’s loss means to the enterprise.  Samsung is the leading maker of smart phones which means that a good number of employees are looking to connect their Samsung Android device up to your corporate network.  They’ve done more to make Android mainstream than any other manufacturer. In turn, there are some immediate and long term questions for both Samsung devices and the Android platform in general.

Samsung and the courts needs to answer some questions pretty quickly.  

Will employees be able to receive emergency security patches for the Samsung created device?  Will enhancements continue to come?  Will Samsung be forced to remove functionality as part of any agreement with Apple?  If current models continue to sold will this fork Android devices further by having the same model without infringing features?  How will this integrate with existing enterprise Mobile Device Management (MDM) systems?

If you are in control of you enterprise mobile purchasing, support or BYOD catalog then you may want to really consider the impact of the judgement on not just Samsung but for all Android devices.  Apple’s victory was so convincing that I can’t believe they will end their legal battles against Android just at this victory against Samsung.

BYOD management: Using a device catalog to control users

Posted: August 23, 2012 by Keith Townsend in Network, PC & Server Hardware
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I’m starting to branch out and post content on additional sites.  Over on SearchNetworking, I discuss how to use device catalogs as a way to limit the pains of BYOD.

http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/news/2240161948/BYOD-management-Using-a-device-catalog-to-control-users

Should employees pay their own service bill for BYOD

Posted: August 13, 2012 by Keith Townsend in General, PC & Server Hardware
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I’ve read more than a couple of stories that claim that BYOD doesn’t save money but sends service costs spiraling out of control. The main cause is that companies either subsidize or out right pay an employees service charges.  The employee selects a device and a plan and then expenses the plan.  This is a different concept of BYOD than what I’ve been use to practicing.  Most organizations I’ve been a part of has allowed some form of BYOD.  The first organization I was at required me to purchase my own mobile device but paid my service charges.  I didn’t get an option on what plan I was offered.  I selected my device and the corporate communications team would provision my phone number and plan.

The other option I’ve been given or have given users is for them to bring their own device and service plan and be allowed access to the corporate network.  This appealed to some users, especially marketing and sales types as they took their number with them when the left the organization.  This is why I’ve always considered BYOD as a method to save money.  As an IT Manager I don’t see the appeal of offering an employee to both purchase and control the plan associated with their mobile device.  I’m all for giving choice of tools to allow a user to use to do their work but uncontrolled plans makes no sense to me.  What has been your organization approach to expenses associated with BYOD?

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure missed the boat on mobile Bring Your Own Device

Posted: May 19, 2012 by Keith Townsend in Virtualization
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iPad’s Running Windows?

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is a great technology.  But great technologies don’t always become great solutions.  Barb Darrow over at GigaOM post titled “Is this the year of desktop virtualization yet?”  It would seem the year of desktop virtualization has indeed been coming for the last 5 years.  VDI is a wonderful solution for the right use case.  The successful cases I’ve seen include, Remote Access and certain verticals such as health, education and manufacturing.  However, recently I’ve seen vendors such as Cisco trying to make a case for mobile Bring Your Own Device (BYOD).  I’ve posted earlier on how I believe BYOD is not a great use case for VDI.  Here’s a snapshot of my major concerns when it comes to VDI and BYOD.

Offline Access

The two major vendors in VDI, Citrix and VMWare have similar approaches to solve this problem.  They both involve running client side Hypervisors.  Citrix’ solution XenClient has a very limited range of hardware that will it supports.  VMWare leverages its leadership in client side Hypvervisors to allow offline usage with VMWare Workstation like features in VMWare View.

When designing a solution with this approach here are major issues to overcome.

  1. Clients have to be fairly robust to run a hypervisor not to mention someone has to support these machines.
  2. Bandwidth required to synchronize the datacenter based VDI and the remote client.
  3. No offline option for ARM based tablets.  This may change with Windows 8 and Intel based tablets.

User Experience

User experience is great in today’s modern VDI solutions, when using VDI for its original use case – Thin Client Computing.  However, the workforce and work environment are changing.  IT is becoming a commodity in both the workplace and in the home.  Products like Windows Home Server, Dropbox, and Google Apps have created a second market for collaboration that is out of the control of corporate IT.  End users have found ways to be collaborative in the way that they desire collaboration.

So, while VDI allows you to present Windows based enterprise applications to non-Windows smartphones and tablets it doesn’t allow for the fluid user experience that end users are now getting from readily available services.  I’ve used windows applications on my iPad and while it works the experience leaves a lot to be desired.

I think this speaks to the change in what consumers consider as personal computing solutions.  When we first started talking BYOD 5 years ago, Windows dominated not only the enterprise but the consumer markets.  This is no longer the case today.  Consumers have a large section of operating systems and form factors from which to choose.  And they conflict with the primary choice for VDI workstation environments Windows.  Microsoft has already spent at least 10 years proving that end users don’t want mobile devices running Windows. So, why are we trying to still deploy it as a solution via VDI?

I’m a fan of VDI.  Solutions like XenApp and XenDesktop enable companies to pool special use software licenses, centralize desktop support and simplify software deployment among many other attributes.  But, VDI is not the long term solution for BYOD from both a mobile and desktop experience.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on VDI as a BYOD solution.  What’s your organization’s approach to BYOD and enabling enterprise applications and collaboration?

Think BYOD is an issue? Wait for Stealth IT

Posted: April 23, 2012 by Keith Townsend in Uncategorized
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Reblogged from GigaOM:

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The acronym BYOD, which stands for bring your own device, is taking over both corporate America and the press release filter in my inbox. But an analyst report out Monday suggests that BYOD has a flip side that no one talks about -- Stealth IT, or the IT pro side of the consumerization trend that has swept corporate America.

Read more… 539 more words

As a couple of posters have stated this is not a new problem. However, I believe the solution is for organizations to adopt a framework for expanding their data center to the public cloud. This is where solutions such as OpenStack, CloudStack, vCloud should come into play. If you asked me today vCloud is the closest solution for this problem since VMWare is so prevelant throughout the enterprise and in theory extending your infrastructure out to a vCloud provider should be an effort that is attainable by current IT staff. However, I don't read many case studies on this being widely available on the Cloud provider side of the equation and in production. Also, most IT departments aren't ready to manage this type of environment. On the flip side of the coin with solutions such as OpenStack which support AWS you still need to invest a significant amount of resources in to the control panel for your public/private cloud and its operation to this point is even more complex than vCenter. I guess the short is that these IT managers will continue to whip out the credit card and risk solving these business problems in an insecure/unsupported manner and will have to clean it up when the organization and technology mature.

BYOD is unstoppable. Smart companies must build apps

Posted: April 8, 2012 by Keith Townsend in General
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Reblogged from GigaOM:

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The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) movement has gained unstoppable momentum. And thanks to the burgeoning mobile app market, employees have high expectations for these tools. They want an attractive user experience tailored to their devices. In other words, companies need to invest in building apps, period.

During my two decades of working in enterprise IT, I’ve observed the client-server revolution, the internet explosion and the service-oriented architecture (SOA) boom.

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I talked about this a couple months ago on virtualizedgeek.com. The above comment talked about Citrix which is a good start but ultimately organizations need to focus on cloud type services. This doesn't mean public cloud solutions such as Salesforce but the idea is the same. The applications need to be web based and support multiple browsers. Users will bring their own devices if they are approved or not by IT. This will soon become an issue for retaining top talent. Top talent will want to utilize their own technology in the way that they want or leave. This may sound like an over reaction but, I don't believe that's the case. Top talent finds a way to be more productive and being able to seamlessly combine their personal productivity with your work productivity is a big factor for these contributors. IT needs to understand how to service these customers while keeping the data within the boundaries of their control. VDI is a start but again if all this talent wanted to use Windows then Mac OS X/iOS and Android wouldn't be doing so well. See my earlier post on why I believe BYOD is failing.

BYOD is all about delivery

Posted: February 26, 2012 by Keith Townsend in Cloud Computing, Virtualization
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Remember the big push for BYOD laptops?  The theory was that people would get a credit for a laptop device and bring it in to work.  Now the big push is around mobile devices.  End users have voted and Blackberry is out.  iPAD’s, iPhones and Android devices are in.  This makes for a difficult set of choices for the enterprise.

The great advantage of Blackberry has been the combination of the device and BES management server.  But the end user devices got stale.  I have a BB Torch which is not a bad device but outside of corporate e-mail I don’t use it.  I’m pretty anxious for our corporation’s BYOD strategy.  A great deal of time has been spent on getting similar management capability to the BES management platform.  The 3rd party market around Android and iOS is settling.  This solves the basic problem of e-mail.

Now organizations need to solve the problems around application access and development.  For true cost savings the need is in building applications that are portable across multiple platforms.  The question now becomes is there a ROI for this compared to status quo?

The same question is said for the workstation end point.  As I mentioned in an early post end users don’t want VDI.  The solution has to be around applications that can be hosted in the cloud (public or private) so that users can take advantage of whatever endpoint device that they choose.  I believe the key will lay in SaaS provider’s such as Salesforce.com that will offer API’s between SaaS solutions that entire organizational architectures can be built.  From back office applications such as content management to CRM and ERP.

Bring your own device is a fail? (or is VDI a failed approach?)

Posted: October 30, 2011 by Keith Townsend in Cloud Computing, Virtualization
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Read a post on ZDNET about how virtualization is the answer to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD).  That got me to thinking – Are the technologies that are being billed as enablers to BYOD actually the technologies that employees want? On VirtualizedGeek we’ve talked about many of these technologies – Application Virtualization, VDI and of course this is a virtualization blog primarily.  But are these technologies actually the enabler to BYOD that many organizations are aiming?

These technologies are deployed to keep corporate data within the boundaries of the enterprise.  They all help to isolate corporate data from the end user’s consumer environment and enable the organization to deliver existing applications without making major upgrades beyond the pace the organization is comfortable.

One advantage is that if a user wants to bring an iPad to work they can.  The disadvantage – they bring an iPad to work and get a Windows interface.  If this user wanted a Windows interface they would buy Windows devices.  And the Windows interface doesn’t work well on an iPad.  It’s not just an issue of iPad vs. Windows it’s also an issue of Windows XP vs. Windows 7.  Users invest in technologies so that they can have the latest and greatest experience.  A friend of mine was  frustrated because she brought her MacBook Pro to work and couldn’t use any of its native interface and features.  She experienced many of the same interface issues that made her buy a MacBook in the first place.  This is why consumer by Windows 7 PC’s.

This is one of the main challenges with Windows XP.  There has been an explosion of advanced applications and services tied to and introduced over the long life of XP.  This has made migrating an entire enterprise to Windows 7 extremely difficult (good reason for VDI).  In the meantime, the consumer market has marched along with Vista, Windows 7, iOS, Mac OS 10.7 and 14 new versions of Google Chrome.  There’s a huge gap between where the end user would like their experience to be and what BYOD technologies deliver today.

Users ultimately want to be productive in the manner in which they are best productive.  What’s the answer?  One solution is the “Cloud”.  Organizations need to start building their applications and data stores without a specific endpoint in mind.  This will be a difficult shift.  Office 365 and Google Apps are good examples of how software and service providers are starting to offer alternates to legacy applications that are platform independent and are viable options for BYOD.  But there is still a lot of work that needs to be done.  I believe Google has a good notion of where this needs to go with their Chrome Book platform but the execution and ecosystem is not where it needs to be at this point.  Microsoft has taken a much more enterprise friendly approach with 365.  It’s a familiar interface with features geared more toward BYOD than the previous mentioned technologies.

If you are thinking of doing a BYOD program or have implemented one what technologies have you considered and how successful has the program been from a popularity and support perspective?