Answers from Dell World on Cloud Client-Computing

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It’s hard to believe that Dell World is already here again; the year has flown by! It’s been an exciting 2014 for Dell cloud client-computing, full of growth and innovation. In fact, according to IDC, Dell ranked #1 worldwide in thin client market share in Q2 of this year. And while the year is winding down, we’re not planning to slow our roll any time soon.

Today we’re proud to announce a new addition to the Wyse Datacenter family of solutions, the Wyse Datacenter XC Appliance. This is the VDI application of today’s announcement of the new Dell XC Series of Web-scale Converged Appliances, which combine compute and storage into a single packaged offering with Nutanix’s industry leading software-defined storage solution.

We recognize that despite its many benefits such as enhanced mobility, manageability, security, and reliability, many organizations lack the resources to successfully implement and maintain desktop virtualization. When included within the Wyse Datacenter Appliance Architecture, the Wyse Datacenter XC Appliance offers a new end-to-end solution that addresses common impediments to VDI adoption. It’s another important step in our mission to make it as simple as possible for organizations to reap the benefits of virtual desktops.

In the spirit of simplifying desktop virtualization, I thought I’d take a moment to answer some of the questions that you might have about the new solution and Dell cloud client-computing. I hope you’ll find this helpful, but I encourage you to ask any other questions in the comments section below, or send them via Twitter to @DellWyse.

When it comes to VDI, what is the Wyse Datacenter XC Appliance and how can it simplify desktop virtualization for my organization?

The Wyse Datacenter XC Appliance is a key component of the Wyse Datacenter Appliance Architectures for Citrix®, Microsoft®, VMware®, and Wyse vWorkspace. These provide details of the complete end-to-end infrastructure along with essential hypervisor and broker technology that is easy to implement and designed for desktop virtualization. The core of the solution is the Dell XC web-scale converged appliance, a hyper converged infrastructure appliance (HCIA) that consolidates compute and storage into a single chassis powered by Nutanix software. We include the Wyse Datacenter XC Appliance in these multiple appliance architectures, which provide sizing and additional useful information along with end point recommendations to form a complete end-to-end desktop virtualization solution.

Some of the benefits offered by the Wyse Datacenter XC Appliance include:

  • Easy purchasing and deployment: As simple and fast to purchase and deploy as Dell laptops; you can get the maximum number of seats up and running in a matter of hours instead of days.
  • Predictable scaling costs: You purchase the solution as a single unit with compute and storage for a fixed number of seats, with three available levels of performance. This lets you grow incrementally with pay-as-you-grow, scale-out expansion. As your organization grows you can add additional units to increase seats or scale up to a different configuration to increase performance.
  • Simplified management: Monitor and manage your virtual desktop deployment through a unified management console.
  • Flexibility: It can be easily deployed with Citrix XenDesktop, VMware Horizon View and Microsoft and Wyse vWorkspace environments, with the choice of Hyper-V® or vSphere® hypervisors.

 

Why is now a good time to move to desktop virtualization?

In a recent Forbes article, Gartner listed cloud client-computing on its Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2015 (below). An important aspect of cloud client-computing is desktop virtualization, which delivers tremendous value in increased mobility, scalability, security and energy efficiency, and gives IT a centralized and streamlined way to easily manage and maintain employee desktops. The flexibility is unparalleled: administrators can deliver the content and applications that employees need no matter where they are working, and employees can use either company devices or their own. Virtual desktops are also ultra-secure since apps and content reside in the secure datacenter.

The Wyse Datacenter XC Appliance also addresses a key area of concern: storage. Previously, deploying desktop virtualization meant sizing and purchasing storage arrays, often with capacity that exceeding what was needed to support the infrastructure. The Wyse Datacenter XC Appliance removes this barrier to deployment, and enables you to much more closely match the infrastructure you purchase to the actual number of virtual desktops you need.

With our specialized virtualized roadmap methodology, Dell experts can help evaluate your organization’s unique situation and requirements and determine the right solution – whether it involves virtual desktops or more traditional computing. For more information and to get in touch with us, please visit Dell.com/virtualdesktop.


About the Author: Jeff McNaught

Jeff McNaught is the Vice President of Marketing at Dell Cloud Client- Computing. Jeff is widely considered the most quoted spokesperson for cloud client-computing in the world. With the experience of hundreds of speaking engagements, articles and press interviews, he is considered an authority on the topics of green IT, cybersecurity, mobility, desktop virtualization and cloud computing. He joined Dell in 2012 as part of the Wyse acquisition and now leads end-to-end desktop virtualization marketing and strategy efforts with his talented team. Jeff joined Wyse in 1987 as an engineer, then led various strategy, development, marketing and general management roles where his most notable achievement was co-inventing and spearheading the development of the award-winning Wyse thin clients, now with tens of millions of units in use worldwide. He lives in El Dorado Hills, Calif., and earned his M.B.A. from Pepperdine University.
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