Trend

The virtualised desktop

With the announcement of virtualisation technology for desktop processors by Intel and AMD, this server technology is now moving into desktops and entry-level servers. Shivani Shinde reports

According to a recent Gartner release, virtualisation will make a major impression by 2008. The idea is that this technology allows better manageability, cost reduction and consolidation. It holds true for both the server and the desktop.

Virtualisation has been around for years on RISC servers. Now it’s moving into the desktop and entry-level x86 servers. With Intel’s recent launch of Pentium 4 chips supporting virtualisation technology (VT) and AMD working on ‘Pacifica,’ its own desktop virtualisation strategy, the time is ripe for desktops to run more than one OS.

Serving up virtual gear

"Virtualisation on the desktop is a good option for large corporate set-ups. The opportunity exists on the corporate and consumer fronts" - Rajesh Gupta General Manager Technical Support South Asia Intel

Intel provides for virtualisation on its Xeon processors, the company recently announced the availability of the same on its Pentium chips. It is offering two Pentium 4 processors with virtualisation capabilities—672 and 662. This is an industry-first in terms of hardware virtualisation on the desktop.

Virtualisation allows a platform to run multiple operating systems or applications in independent partitions or “containers” that can be tailored for specific needs such as IT management services and protection of networked assets.

The recent release by Intel had been long awaited with AMD planning to come out with its version of VT called ‘Pacifica.’ Further evolving ‘built-in’ IT security and manageability capabilities for businesses, Intel will deliver the second phase of another premier platform innovation—Intel Active Management Technology—together with virtualisation support on its dual-core Intel Professional Business Platform, code-named Averill, in 2006. Virtualisation capabilities will also be extended to notebooks—the Intel Centrino platform—in 2006.

Rajesh Gupta, General Manager, Technical Support South Asia, Intel says, “Virtualisation on the desktop is a good option for large corporate set-ups. That said, the opportunity exists both on the corporate and the consumer front.” He adds that the major benefits that an enterprise will derive from the technology are better systems and image management of corporate platforms through separate IT and user partitions and improved isolation for sensitive applications.

Gupta feels that the main consumer client applications are enhanced protection against spyware or malware due to increased isolation of computing environments and increased stability due to functionally-separated environments (i.e., isolated personal video recorder).

AMD’s Pacifica technology promises to advance the industry-wide trend towards hardware virtualisation—a trend that Gartner believes will transform the way PCs are used.

Gartner talks about VT making serious inroads by 2008. This is one technology that has moved from the server to the desktop and back again into the entry-level server segment.

VT on the server in the Unix environment has been around for almost a decade now. The importance of VT on desktop is news because the x86 architecture has been modified for it. VT is getting popular but it will need third party software to work.

Though Intel has announced the availability of VT on P4, leading virtualisation solution providers including VMware, Microsoft and Xen have joined Intel in support of Intel Virtualisation Technology on future Intel processor-based PCs and servers. AMD is working closely with XenSource and VMware.

Along with the announcement of VT from Intel came VMware’s declaration on the availability of VMware Workstation 5.5, their newest release. It has been welcomed by both Intel and AMD.

AMD is offering virtualisation on desktops through both AMD Opteron server chips and Athlon 64 processors for desktops and notebooks. It is working on adding features to its chips to improve the computers’ performance or make them more secure. In addition, the company announced a partnership with XenSource to port its Xen open-source virtualisation package to AMD’s 64-bit Opteron chips in the first half of this year.

The impact of virtualisation will be widely felt only if the software needed to make it work came bundled with Linux or Windows. As long as the need for third party software persists, the use of VT will be limited to large enterprises and even there it will be deployed on those desktops where security is a must. Another scenario where VT could flourish is in software development where developers need to run multiple OSs as they code.

For SMBs too

The technology has promise for the SMB segment as well. States Gupta: “Within SOHO, for example, administrators will be able to isolate a portion of a managed PC to perform system upgrades and maintenance without interrupting the end-user.” Configuring multiple ‘machines’ on a PC improves manageability by providing support for legacy applications while testing and adopting new operating environments. A user could try Windows Vista (when it is released) without aban-doning XP or Linux for that matter.

The technology should allow for better productivity and business gains. Apart from that, IT managers could create one desktop PC that can function independently as both a business and personal system, keeping software loads and data separate. In this way, if a notebook gets infected while being used in an employee’s home, the infection will not spread onto the office network as a different ‘machine’ will be used when the employee logs in at work.

As in virtual servers, desktop virtualisation would provide for TCO reduction and efficiency improvement. A large number of VMs can be run on a central machine, serving applications on an as-required-basis to the users.

shivani@expresscomputeronline.com