Over the past year I have talked about lots of different aspects of Microsoft Desktop Virtualization and have highlighted the benefits of our end-to-end stack. As I’ve previously discussed, Microsoft Desktop Virtualization takes a unique approach because we recognize and have heard from our customers that one size does not fit all. It’s easy for companies to be tempted to jump to the latest trend or technology without first thinking about how it will help their business. After all, it is fun to be the person with the latest gadget or be the one who identifies a new technology that will help the business. New technologies are the things that keep IT staff excited about their jobs and challenge them to be better than they are today.

However, once new technologies are discovered, it’s a good idea for IT to move their mindset from “cool and new for ME” to “cool, new, AND benefits my ORGANIZATION” – the point being that the new technology should help solve business challenges faced today and ones expected in the future. Additionally, it should be understood that not every product fits a business’s needs while others might provide a great value. This is why when thinking about implementing Microsoft Desktop Virtualization solutions it’s important to understand how the different layers and the associated solutions can be used independently or together to address specific needs. Once you’ve done this and identified the right desktop virtualization solutions for your business need, you’ll want to think about your management strategy as it becomes a key to broad scale success.

Microsoft’s Desktop Virtualization products offer superior manageability through close integration with the Microsoft System Center family of products – products many customers already own – which enables IT departments to easily deploy, monitor and manage virtual applications and assets the same way they manage physical assets. This single platform can help deploy and manage RDS Sessions, Microsoft VDI VMs, App-V applications and MED-V workspaces, thus avoiding the need to stand up a dedicated management infrastructure for each environment. Microsoft is recognized as a leader within Gartner’s 2011 Magic Quadrant for PC Configuration Life Cycle Management (PCCLM) Tools.* We believe this placement affirms Microsoft System Center as a stable product and frontrunner amongst the industries top competitors. According to the Magic Quadrant references, managing physical and virtual desktop environments is an important emerging requirement of PCCLM tools.

Now you may be wondering, what are the components of System Center that work with Microsoft Desktop Virtualization products and result in effective management? Let me provide a brief overview of the three main components: System Center Configuration Manager, System Center Virtual Machine Manager, and System Center Operations Manager.

• System Center Configuration Manager is the foundational component needed for IT departments to help support new devices that have entered their environment. Many of times these devices are ones that were never intended to be used in an existing environment and IT departments are being pushed to become more flexible in the way they deliver solutions for these devices. System Center Configuration gives them the ability to manage and protect corporate assets on an array of devices through a unified solution that includes full lifecycle management for virtual applications and virtual machines that run locally or are hosted in the datacenter. It also now provides a self-service portal that allows users to self-provision applications for both physical and virtual desktops.
• System Center Virtual Machine Manager enables IT Professionals to configure and deploy new virtual machines and centrally manage the virtual server infrastructure for VDI, RDS session hosts, App-V and Configuration manager management servers from one console. It does this through its multi-hypervisor support including Hyper-V and end-to-end capabilities such as planning, deploying and managing the virtual machines. Additionally, it provides increased server utilization and higher availability through dynamic resource optimization across multiple virtualization platforms.
• System Center Operations Manager enables IT departments to monitor their desktop virtualization environment through numerous views showing state, health and performance. With deep application insights for .NET applications and end-user performance, alerts and diagnostic information are provided to help identify and quickly fix any discovered availability, performance, configuration or security issues across different systems and workloads. This ultimately leads to the ability to cut uptime, which results in the cost reduction of management.

Now let’s take a close look at a few key areas of desktop virtualization and see how the upcoming System Center 2012 Configuration Manager release in particular helps manage their products.

• Application Virtualization (App-V): With multiple form factors entering workplaces with numerous network connection types and operating systems, one can imagine the significant complexities and challenges that arise when delivering applications to users. One desktop virtualization solution that helps address these challenges is App-V. It works with Configuration Manager 2012 to make the delivery of applications more seamless by taking management to the next level with a user-centric management focus. These two products together can serve as a point for application streaming and/or can also determine what format an application should be delivered in based on device and network. Additionally, this process allows administrators to create deployment rules to establish these relationships, while also being able to inventory virtual applications, meter the virtual application licenses, and deliver virtual applications as part of Operating System Deployment Task Sequences.
• Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V): In some work scenarios users may run multiple instances of Windows within a virtual machine on the same local device. There are typically two reasons for doing this – one for development and test scenarios and the other for application compatibility scenarios using MED-V. By working with Configuration Manger users can manage locally hosted virtual machines the same way they manage their existing PCs. The Configuration Manager allows users to bypass their dedicated MED-V infrastructure used to help migrate Windows XP machines to Windows 7, and rather use it deploy, update, inventory and provision software to the MED-V workspace. For more information, see the MED-V Deployment Whitepaper.
• Server Hosted Desktop Virtualization: Microsoft’s virtualization platform is unique in that one platform delivers integrated management across VDI and RDS Sessions on a common, integrated infrastructure, and Configuration Manager helps manage them all in a unified interface. Both VDI and RDS Sessions deliver personal desktops, and with Configuration Manager it addresses these like a typical physical desktop by providing software update management, software distribution, hardware and software inventory, software metering and compliance settings management, while also randomizing those key management tasks to minimize virtual host disk impacts. Additionally, in the upcoming 2012 release, Configuration Manager will be able to identify whether a virtual desktop is pooled or personal. In a pooled scenario the virtual desktop is wiped and reset each time the user logs off, in a personal scenario, the user is assigned a specific virtual desktop that maintains its state. Understanding the differences, Configuration Manager 2012 will allow you to assign an application policy based on that attribute and recognize & record pooled virtual desktops appropriately

I hope that you found this helpful and learned a bit more about the Microsoft products offered to customers to help them manage their environment efficiently and effectively. If you would like to learn more about managing desktop virtualization with Microsoft System Center, I suggest reading this whitepaper. As always, please feel free to leave comments or questions below and for more information on Microsoft Desktop Virtualization please visit www.microsoft.com/DV.

*Gartner, Inc., Magic Quadrant for PC Configuration Life Cycle Management Tools, Terrence Cosgrove, January 4, 2011. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in our research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.