A Smarter Way to Manage Desktops

August/September 2009 Sun Inner Circle newsletter Social Media: Maximize the Opportunity This Issue's Letter from Sun CIO Bob Worrall Share: Related Resources Sun VirtualBox New Advances in Desktop Virualization Technology Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Scaling Virtual Desktops on Sun Fire X4450 Servers Inner Circle Subscriber Center Get the content that meets your interests and needs: » Update your profile. Not a member? » Join now. Print-friendly page Contact Sun

IT management is constantly asked to do more with less. Traditionally, the focus has been on hardware: wringing more productivity out of servers, consolidating systems to cut costs, and so on. But there are also opportunities to save money and improve efficiency by enabling people to do more with less — particularly when it comes to managing desktop environments.

Despite the massive influx of mobile devices, netbooks, and other hand-held gizmos, the desktop computer is still the predominant productivity tool in most organizations. Yet all too often the desktop’s functionality is still limited to one operating system and one CPU used by one individual; the company’s desktops are still managed by a small army of administrators (whose salaries continue to climb while hardware costs shrink); and security is still a major problem.

Visualize a Virtualized Environment

In the same way server and storage systems can be virtualized to pool resources and improve utilization rates, desktop environments can be virtualized to improve end-user productivity, manageability, and security.

Through virtualization products such as Sun VirtualBox software, a single desktop can host multiple operating systems and perform many different types of jobs. So a Windows-based PC is no longer just a PC — can also run the Macintosh OS in one window, Linux in another, and OpenSolaris in yet another.

Moreover, with Sun VirtualBox the desktop device is no longer limited to the number of physical CPUs it was built with. It can be configured with virtual CPUs (up to 32 virtual CPUs in a single system) or it can tap into the processing power of larger servers or even cloud computing environments.

And with Sun VirtualBox the desktop device is no longer subject to the same security threats as a PC because the virtual environments are isolated from the native environment and can be discarded at any time. So users can feel free to try out new software or download programs into a virtual environment without the risk of contaminating the host machine.

You can even test-drive a new OS, such as Windows 7 or the latest version of OpenSolaris, or launch an instance of a legacy OS, such as OS/2, without disrupting anything or putting any resources at risk.

Think of the desktop device as a house with different rooms for different purposes: an “office” where work is kept separate from home stuff; “family rooms” where each member of the family has their own space and can make/break things at will (ideal for teenagers); “safe zones” where you can do financial transactions with complete security; even a “cleaning cabinet” that cleans up the other spaces in the background.

Equally important, through the management capabilities of products such as Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), the administration of virtual desktop environments can be centralized and streamlined, saving administrative time and expense. Since desktops are centrally hosted, only the display is sent to the client device; critical data never leaves the corporate network and can be managed and backed up by IT.

Showcase Example: Sun VirtualBox and Sun VDI at JavaOne

To better understand the real-world potential of Sun VirtualBox and Sun VDI, take a closer look at how Sun provisioned and managed 21,000 virtual desktops for the attendees of this year’s JavaOne conference in San Francisco.

Sun installed hundreds of Sun Ray “thin-client” desktops throughout the lobby areas of the Moscone Center, where the conference took place. Every JavaOne attendee was given a smartcard as part of their registration welcome kit. To access their home or work desktops from the Sun Rays, all they had to do was insert the smartcard into the nearest available Sun Ray and choose the type of virtual desktop they wanted: Windows 7, Ubuntu Linux, or OpenSolaris.

The first time the user made the choice, the chosen virtual desktop virtual machine (VM) was created based on a template in Sun VDI. The VM configuration was stored in a MySQL database, and the virtual disk image was quickly cloned from the template. Then Sun VDI chose a VirtualBox server, launched the new VM on that server, and authenticated the new virtual disk. When the user removed his or her smartcard, the VM suspended after a short period, freeing up resources for other users. Re-insertion of the smartcard re-launched the previously created virtual desktop, and the VM was restored from disk.

How many administrators were required to manage these 21,000 virtual desktops? A grand total of two.

And how much high-powered hardware was required to run everything? A single rack, populated by four VDI servers (Sun Fire X4450 servers, each with four CPUs and 64 GB memory), five VirtualBox servers (Sun Fire X4450 servers, each with four CPUs, six cores per CPU and 64 GB of memory), and three 7210 Unified Storage servers. This configuration, incidentally, proved to be excessive for the requirements!

Open Source Alternative, Open to Any OS

Sun VirtualBox has quickly and quietly become the most popular open source virtualization solution in the world. The installed base exceeds 16 million, and there were more than one million downloads in the month of July alone, according to senior product manager Andy Hall.

“I believe Sun VirtualBox has gained traction quickly because it’s an enterprise-class solution that runs on all major operating systems, and it’s the first virtualization product that handles workloads of up to 32 virtual CPUs,” said Hall. “And since it’s backed by a large and growing community, it simply delivers more innovation, faster.”

Sun VirtualBox software is free of charge for personal use. For wider deployments within an organization, enterprise subscriptions are also available, starting at $30 (USD) per user per year, which includes 24/7 premium support from Sun's technical team. Discounts are available based on volume.

For more information about Sun VirtualBox or to download the product, visit http://virtualbox.org.

For additional details about Sun VDI, visit http://www.sun.com/software/vdi/index.jsp.