Desktop Virtualisation
Do more with less.
IT organisations typically spend in excess of 80% of their budgets "keeping the lights on" and the remainder on innovation and improvement. The conjuring up of a magic bullet that will make these costs disappear has been the subject of many discussions and technology advancements.
Key to understanding the buzz about desktop virtualisation, is this desire by companies to shrink their IT budgets, putting pressure on IT to find alternative methods of delivery, one such method is the centralisation of management and control of the desktop estate.
A traditional managed desktop consists of a large number of devices spread geographically throughout the company. Each of these end-points has to be secured, managed, protected, updated, tracked and eventually replaced and recovered. associated with each of these activities is cost and complexity.
Virtual Desktop promises to remove and simplify much of this complexity by the centralisation of the desktop. Running in a Virtual environment, hosted centrally within secure Data Centres, the disparate nature of the end point has been removed, the device used to access the centralised infrastructure becomes less important and can be delivered as a thin client device, or re-tasked PC.
The ECS approach
ECS delivers.
ECS has been formed by like minded individuals, offering niche services to our corporate customers.
ECS has an approach fostered from years of experience delivering real cost savings, and service improvements in both project and business as usual engagements.
We do this by listening to our customers requirements and solutioning to best fit their needs. While we are happy to maintain, our real benefit is driving innovation in these services, producing the same result for a more streamlined service, with the added benefit of reduced cost and/or service improvement.
Our Service offerings are managed and delivered using industry recognised methodologies and standardised toolsets. In addition, where we see a gap in the available tools, we will seek to develop and integrate niche products, where the service requires it. These in-house developed tools are free for use while the service is being delivered by ECS.
Application Packaging
In a corporate environment, the maintainability of the application estate is key to a supportable environment. The packaging of applications helps achieve this by creating automated installs of all desktop applications, allowing remote deployment, auto-repair and the ability to remove the application without impacting other applications or users.
In addition, when considering a migration, the transition of applications from one platform to another should not be underestimated. ECS provides a methodology second to none, developed through multiple large engagements, and working with class leading tools vendors in the management of applications through the migration cycle and business as usual packaging engagements.
All while maintaining high quality output of the end product, be that a traditional MSI package or virtualised application, compliant with the target OS. Available as a blended service designed on a customer specific basis, balancing resource requirements and cost effectiveness to deliver the optimum service, either a low cost offshore packaging with a local service management and quality assurance, onshore, or on-site.
The Process
Business Discovery
In all cases of application management, the initial phase is to determine the applications to be managed or migrated to a new platform.
The consultancy required is to understand the relationship between the applications in use in a company, and the application set designated to become the strategic supported portfolio. This takes the form of both automated and manual effort, including workshops with appropriate business unit owners to determine which applications are retained and which are retired or removed from the platform. Key to the success of this phase is a clear understanding of the target platform to determine compatibility, as well as an ability to negotiate with and understand the business requirements of the business stakeholders.
Why do it?
Application Engineering allows you to enhance the services to your internal customers by controlling and delivering a reliable and repeatable methodology for management of software on desktops, while the following benefits are realised by the Enterprise IT function:
Support costs lowered – By providing a common desktop operating environment, calls to the help desk can be reduced and more easily managed. Also as software is now managed centrally Software engineers are no longer required to install on location
Scalability – Business growth can be met more quickly using this repeatable methodology
Standards – It is easier to implement and manage standards throughout the enterprise
Governance and Regulatory Compliance – Changes can easily be implemented and automatically maintained throughout the Enterprise.