What is Desktop Virtualization ?

The field of information technology, or IT, has been witnessing advancements at a very rapid pace, with new applications and software being developed to fulfill the demands of users daily. Nowadays, users want the freedom to access their applications and systems from anywhere at any time. They even want the ability to work on multiple systems, regardless of their location; they also want this access to be secure and flawless. Luckily, all of this can be achieved through desktop virtualization.

Virtualization is the process of separating a logical operating system from the physical storage system. Virtualization offers several advantages to its users. It provides a secure, consistent and customized experience. This improves the efficiency and productivity of employees, and provides them freedom to work from anywhere. It also simplifies management as IT operations are integrated on a single infrastructure for all assets, whether they are physical or virtual. Additionally, it improves compliance as the access is centralized, and confidential data is controlled. This also ensures continuity of business.

The different models of desktop virtualization are classified into two categories: “host based desktop virtualization”, and “client-based desktop virtualization”. The basis of this classification is whether the execution of operating system is local or remote. It is not necessary to use virtual machines (VMs) in all forms of virtualization.

Host-based desktop virtualization:

In host based desktop virtualization, users access their desktops through remote display protocol. The processing is done at a data center. The clients have the liberty of using any device such as smartphones, thin clients, tablets and zero clients. This type of visualization uses three components. The first one is host-based virtual machines that are hosted in a data center. Through this, the user has the option to use the same VM or any random VM. The second component is shared hosting, which uses remote desktop services that enable users to connect to desktop applications. The third component is the host-based physical machines or blades that are located in data center and are used to run the operating system directly.


Client-based desktop virtualization:

In client-based desktop virtualization, the users access their desktops through local hardware. Unlike host-based virtualization, this option does not give users the freedom to use devices such as smartphones, thin clients and zero clients. This type of visualization uses OS streaming and client-based virtual machines. Through OS streaming, the OS runs on the local hardware and a remote disk image is booted throughout the network. The local hardware used is fat-client with all features of a desktop computer other than a hard drive. The client-based virtual machines run on a completely-operational PC and are managed by syncing the disk image with a server on a regular basis.

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