— : Virtual Desktops

Thin is in — again. Here's how the savings can add up Out on the edge of the virtualization frontier are IT chiefs like David Siles, CTO of the Kane County government in Illinois. In addition to his server virtualization, data consolidation and disaster recovery successes, which he started in 2005, Siles has embarked on an ambitious desktop virtualization project.

Siles is about a quarter of the way through deploying VMware's virtual desktop infrastructure to the county's user base, which accounts for 2000 PCs.

Those users who have started to switch over, including administrative folks, politicians and sheriffs, use thin-client terminals that are hosted back in the data centre on virtual machines.

Although Siles says it's still early in the changeover to calculate exact savings, he will eventually be able to cut maintenance, hardware and service costs because everything is controlled inside the data centre. For example, each terminal cost him $US600. But since he has been able to get 50 to 60 hosted desktops on each four-processor server, he has been able to cut in half each terminal's cost. And, he notes, terminals boast an eight-year lifecycle, rather than a four-year one for a PC.

In addition, his four desktop staffers no longer have to make service calls to the four corners of the growing county (which accounted for two hours of driving time, in most cases).

Those thin clients — especially the 55 mobile units — now pose less of a security concern. "We had a couple laptops stolen out of police cars," Siles says. "Now [with the virtualized thin clients], you essentially just lose a dumb terminal."

— T WAILGUM