WHITE PAPER Driving Business Value with Desktop Virtualization Sponsored by: HP Robert Young Randy Perry April 2015 Jed Scaramella EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The rapid influx of smart devices, including tablets and phones, has greatly accelerated the bring-yourown-device (BYOD) and mobile workforce trends, which in turn is creating an ever-mounting management challenge to today's IT environment. The entry of diverse untrusted devices, multiple operating systems (OSs), and consumer-oriented applications into what used to be a controlled IT environment creates an onslaught of potential security holes and governance nightmares. While consumerization trends are adding significant complexity to IT operations, the increase in employee productivity, collaboration, and satisfaction that mobile technologies offer is not lost on business leaders. Business leaders are increasingly looking to IT organizations to enable employees with access to corporate data, applications, and communication resources on their devices of choice. But seizing this opportunity while maintaining proper governance and control over proprietary corporate data is complex and overwhelming for many IT teams. As a result, today it makes more sense than ever for IT leaders to consider virtual client computing (VCC) solutions. The benefits of VCC include centralized desktop and application management, "any device" access to corporate IT resources, and an increased ability to protect corporate intellectual property. What's more, capabilities for provisioning desktop images allow IT staff to more effectively ensure proper hardware configurations and software currency/licensing, manage user access, and demonstrate compliance with industry and governmental regulations such as HIPAA, SOX, PCI, and FISMA. VCC technologies such as centralized virtual desktops (CVDs; aka virtual desktop infrastructure [VDI]) or virtual user session (VUS) software can provide centrally managed, virtual desktops that can be securely streamed to nearly any device. By abstracting the operating system, applications, and data away from the physical device and moving it to a secure datacenter, organizations adopting a CVD solution can experience significant business value with high return on investment (ROI): 60 70% reduction in computing device cost, extending useful life of the device from 3.3 years to 5.4 years 52% lower cost with improved IT productivity through proactive management practices 30% reduced risk with more secure desktop operations Over 80% less unplanned downtime with more reliable services, which enhances user productivity Over 50% reduction in desktop services delivery cost Payback in less than 12 months April 2015, IDC #255785
IDC finds that most of the organizations that achieve the aforementioned results work with a trusted systems integrator that has the expertise and experience to overcome some of the complexities of deployment. Newer methods of deploying client virtualization on converged infrastructure or appliances prebuilt for a CVD workload can further decrease the time to value. METHODOLOGY Over the past three years, IDC conducted several analyses to measure the financial impact of virtual desktops, interviewing 30 organizations that had recently migrated their traditional PC desktop environment to virtualized desktops. The business value analysis in this white paper reflects models created from that research. IN THIS WHITE PAPER This white paper provides a quantitative measurement of the business value, defined as the expected ROI, associated with the use of desktop and application virtualization. In addition, it provides an overview of HP's solutions and methodology for implementing a desktop virtualization solution. SITUATION OVERVIEW The Evolution of Desktop Management Historically, IT had great control over the choice of OSs and software installed on corporate-owned devices and thus supported relatively homogeneous environments. However, with consumer-grade cloud systems and service, more and more IT organizations are caught between a rock and a hard place, as they realize that failure to keep up with the speed of the business often fosters unnecessary inefficiencies, costs, and rogue IT movements such as "shadow IT." To that end, managing desktop PCs has been a long-standing uphill battle for IT departments, with many IT administrators relying on manual processes and disparate endpoint management solutions for provisioning, configuring, securing, and maintaining client devices. Furthermore, traditional desktop management tools and processes often require business users to hand over their devices to IT for undetermined and often extended periods of time. With an increasingly mobile and global workforce, IT organizations must look toward innovative solutions that allow them to streamline, centralize, and automate the ongoing management of their back-end infrastructure in order to increase productivity and at the same time reduce operational costs. Providing Secure Access to Any Device IDC finds that organizations are aggressively looking at rearchitecting their own applications as mobile applications, just like organizations were looking at rearchitecting their desktop applications 20 years ago to take advantage of the Web. Using history as a guideline, IDC believes that revenue-generating and customer-facing applications will quickly become mobile applications over the next couple of years. However, many enterprises have hundreds, if not thousands, of applications, some of which, while not in active development, are still actively being used. To deliver these applications to the new workspaces, organizations are moving toward desktop virtualization. 2015 IDC #255785 2
While the user experience of streaming a virtual desktop to a mobile device may not rival that of a native mobile application, in most cases, it is good enough, and the latest mobile clients are improving the touch experience on legacy desktop applications. Likewise, client virtualization enables IT administrators to provide a more consistent and seamless desktop experience to the rapidly expanding population of business users who seek to utilize multiple device types in order to conduct business transactions. For example, in most CVD implementations, business users can access the same desktop instance as well as securely access corporate data and applications anytime and anywhere through one set of policies and log-ins regardless of the hardware or operating system. To that end, the benefits of using client virtualization software include: Security. Data streams over an encrypted connection and is never cached on the device. Time to value. Implementing a virtualized desktop requires much less time than building a new native mobile application. Platform independence. Users can access their applications from nearly any device, including their own personal devices. Design and Implementation Critical to Desktop Virtualization Success Implementing, scaling, and supporting a client virtualization solution can be a complex process with large up-front costs. Understanding users' needs and profiles is crucial to an organization's success. Deploying a solution to the wrong user or utilizing the wrong technology is a proven path to failure. It is important to lean on experts in this field who have done large-scale implementations before. Assessing users and current PC infrastructure before implementing a virtualized desktop project can save time and money and also eliminate headaches. For instance, one of the major issues with on-premises client virtualization deployments is what is commonly known as "VDI stall." A proof of concept to 50 100 users can run seamlessly, causing overconfidence in the IT administrator's mind as to what can realistically be deployed within the datacenter. As deployments scale to 200 users, then 500 users, and then maybe even 1,000 users, the networking and storage requirements start to become overwhelming and ultimately drag down user experience. When this happens, typically the deployments stop because IT staff members have to figure out the root cause of issues and whether it makes sense from an economics perspective to increase investment in order to make the deployments successful. Even worse, once users are burned by the experience, they may be much less likely to accept the technology in the long term, even if the issues ultimately get worked out. In fact, on occasion, IDC has seen complete deployments taken down because the initial architecture was not designed properly. As a result, many IT organizations seek converged infrastructure solutions to mitigate these types of VDI implementation pitfalls. It's also critical to understand that a virtual desktop workload is very different from a standard virtualized server workload. The environment may be able to take advantage of the same types of servers, but the networking and, especially, the storage needs are dramatically different. Once again, leaning on partners that understand these differences can mean the difference between a failed implementation and a successful implementation and can lead to a shorter implementation time. 2015 IDC #255785 3
($) The Financial Benefits of Client Virtualization Over the past few years, client virtualization has grown from a tactical approach to solving the problem of multiple users (shift labor) on the same desktop to a strategy for desktop life-cycle management similar to private cloud. Critical to this shift in thinking has been the very compelling financial case for virtualized desktops. Like other cloud strategies, client virtualization yields the following benefits. Lower platform costs Increased operational efficiency and less time spent "keeping the lights on" Consistent and secure service Very high quality of service Organizations that implement client virtualization can reduce their annual costs for delivering PC services by 50% (see Figure 1). FIGURE 1 Annual Cost of PC Services per User 1,800 1,600 1,400 $325 1,200 1,000 800 600 400 200 $837 $422 $180 $109 $405 Server infrastructure Client device PC administration and support 0 Traditional PC $60 VDI Source: IDC, 2015 Lower Platform Costs Despite the initial investment for virtualized software and the one-time investment for blade enclosures, racks, and ports, virtualized clients lower the total costs of desktop services over a 3- to 5-year period. Annual costs for virtualized desktop infrastructure run around 40% lower than those for traditional PCs. Reduced total cost of ownership lowers facilities costs for space, HVAC, security, and electricity by as much as 30% even when one considers the additional space requirements for VDI in the datacenter. Organizations typically extend the replacement cycle for VDI end devices from 3.3 years, which is typical for PCs, to 5.4 years, which reduces not only annual costs for the devices but also IT and user productivity costs associated with device replacement. 2015 IDC #255785 4
Increased Operational Efficiency As with other private cloud strategies, consolidating IT assets on virtualized infrastructure increases the ability of IT departments to support IT services more efficiently. The net result is that organizations can support a growing numbers of mobile desktop users and business applications delivered to those users without adding staff. Organizations in our study, on average, were able to increase the number of applications supported by 72% and yet reduce the hours spent on traditional desktop support and management by 52%. Figure 2 illustrates how much less time IT staff members need to spend on key desktop management or user support tasks after they implement the centralized desktop solution. As with most resource-constrained organizations these days, the real benefit of increasing operational efficiency is the ability to implement transformative initiatives without adding staff members and without loss of performance. FIGURE 2 IT Staff Hours per Task Savings Software deploy/patching 83% Desktop software instal 75% Desktop setup and config Help desk 63% 62% Image management Addressing security issues 43% 42% User administration 32% Source: IDC, 2015 Consistent and Secure Service Securing systems in a controlled environment and maintaining standardized PC content and settings yield many benefits, including protecting the asset from damage and theft. Physical asset security is an important issue in colleges/schools, hospitals, government agencies, and remote locations. More significantly, IT can maintain control over the software environment, ensuring consistent and compatible versions of operating systems and applications. In addition, IT can control access to external storage devices to prevent users from downloading sensitive data or uploading unauthorized software. Data control is a key benefit in certain sensitive government/military agencies and financial institutions and in medical records. Very High Quality of Service One of the key measures of quality of service is reliably providing end users with the business applications they need to do their jobs. Every hour without access is only 30% productive, resulting in 70% of the hourly wage being wasted. Further, disruptions in the workflow tend to lead to lower 2015 IDC #255785 5
application utilization rates, which undermine corporate goals. Centralized control of desktops enables IT staff to employ proactive best practices for delivering consistent user access to business applications, such as integrated systems, management tools, and redundant systems. CVD improves the user experience in multiple ways, as shown in Table 1. Initial installation (start-up) is faster and the time to get the user up and running is reduced by 69%, saving each user 4.3 hours over 3 years (annualized to 1.42 hours). Organizations moving to virtualized desktops enjoyed, on average, an 81% reduction in lost user hours due to unplanned downtime as well as a 62% reduction in the time each user spent dealing with help desk issues. Finally, in a CVD environment, users spend 89% less time on self-service activities, such as deploying software and troubleshooting prior to calling the help desk for assistance; thus each user saves 2.06 hours annually in the organization. Overall, each user saves a total of 11.5 hours annually. Thus, an organization with 10,000 PC users would save 115,000 hours, or roughly $3.6 million in lost productivity, each year. In addition to the user productivity benefits, IDC interviewed many organizations related to improvements to their business productivity. These organizations tended to have over 75% of their employees on VDI. On average, the organizations were able to increase overall employee productivity by 6%, which, in turn, led to lower business operating costs and additional revenue growth. TABLE 1 Annual User Productivity Benefits Hours Saved Reduction (%) Downtime 3.61 81 Help desk 3.64 62 Security 0.80 100 Start-up 1.42 69 Self-service 2.06 89 Total 11.52 75 Source: IDC, 2015 2015 IDC #255785 6
($) ROI Analysis Organizations migrating from a traditional PC environment to CVD face an initial investment of $539 per user, which includes the costs for virtualization software as well as servers, cages, racks, space, and installation to support the back end (see Figure 3). The combined benefits of the CVD environment lower annual infrastructure costs, lower staff support costs, and lower user productivity costs will pay for the initial migration in around six to seven months. Every $1.00 invested in migration to CVD will yield $4.51 in return for an ROI of 351%. FIGURE 3 Cost-Benefit Analysis per User 3,000 2,500 $2,491 2,000 1,500 1,000 500 0-500 -1,000 $1,010 $1,010 $1,010 -$539 Initial Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Investments Benefits Cumulative benefit Source: IDC, 2015 HP Client Virtualization Solutions Although it has been several years since client virtualization solutions were first brought to market, many IT organizations have struggled to overcome some significant implementation roadblocks such as the complexity associated with designing, scaling, and managing the necessary storage, networking, and compute required to run a high-availability virtualized client environment. A client virtualization implementation requires software, hardware, and services and a proven methodology to enable faster installation of the right solution the first time. HP is one of the few companies that can offer all these components. IDC finds that many customers that do implementations on their own run into roadblocks that experienced partners know how to avoid. For instance, doing a proof of concept of 50 100 seats is an important first step in any implementation. However, scaling to 500, 1,000, or even 10,000 seats requires very different resources. 2015 IDC #255785 7
To that end, converged infrastructure treats server, storage, and network infrastructure resources as pools to be assigned as needed in order to optimize the delivery of business services while simplifying IT operations. The following key benefits can be achieved with converged infrastructure: Cost savings due primarily to reduced operating expenses (opex). Because the underlying hardware pieces (server, storage, and network) are designed and optimized to work with each other, IT labor can be reduced because of the built-in interoperability between each component. Simplified management. Most converged infrastructure solutions can be managed by a single console to streamline hardware management and automate workloads, further reducing IT operation complexity and, thus, opex. And shared infrastructure simplifies IT staffing and training. Improved availability. In the converged infrastructure model, high availability and automatic failover capabilities are improved because of the built-in interoperability on the hardware layer. Increased flexibility/utilization. Adding more capacity will be easier in the converged model than in the traditional model; higher utilization of hardware resources can also be achieved. When leveraging converged infrastructure, management, and support offerings, IT organizations stand to overcome many of the common challenges associated with operating a virtualized client environment. Standardized infrastructure can enable application mobility, IT simplicity, and lower capex and opex. Converged infrastructure can serve as a standardized infrastructure for a vast array of business-critical applications in order to deliver enterprise-level functionality to address the needs of high-priority workloads. Likewise, the ability to migrate applications and workloads efficiently across tightly integrated network, storage, and compute resources can greatly enhance both IT and business operations continuity. Furthermore, the expected growth of desktop virtualization will create a golden opportunity for ecosystem partners, especially for vendors that can deliver a converged infrastructure platform that allows customers to maximize their investments and opex savings. At the same time, converged infrastructure can also address the needs of managed service providers, where the emergence of hosted client virtualization, what IDC refers to as workspace as a service (WaaS), will force the service provider to look into more efficient, cost-effective datacenter platforms. An experienced partner can help organizations navigate these roadblocks. Managed services are also available to transfer the risk of hosting a client virtualization solution to HP. HP Converged Systems for Client Virtualization Because different enterprises have unique desktop environments, HP offers a complete portfolio that addresses a spectrum of mobile users: VDI solutions. Built on top of HP ConvergedSystems, VDI solutions leverage validated reference architecture from ISV partners. Capable of running Citrix XenDesktop and VMware vsphere environments, the systems are optimized on the HP ConvergedSystems 700 depending on the type and number of users. Hosted desktop solutions. A hypervisorless platform for users with media-rich and graphics requirements, the HP ConvergedSystem 100 for Hosted Desktops, built on HP Moonshot, provides mobile employees a reliable and secure PC experience with dedicated compute and GPU. 2015 IDC #255785 8
Graphics-accelerated VDI. With the HP ProLiant WS460c Graphics Server Blade, IT organizations can consolidate workstations to a centralized datacenter location. IT can simplify management while end users still have a high-performance graphics experience. FUTURE OUTLOOK IDC forecasts that the virtual client computing market approached $3.1 billion in 2014 and will grow to $4.6 billion in 2018 at a 10.3% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). IDC sees the VCC market as more than just CVD, which accounted for nearly 29.2% of VCC revenue in 2013. The VCC market also includes technology such as VUS software (e.g., Microsoft Remote Desktop Services and Citrix XenApp), which accounted for 60.6% of VCC revenue in 2013. Other technologies such as application virtualization, distributed virtual desktops, and user state virtualization make up the rest of the VCC market. However, IDC sees these technologies as complementary to CVD and VUS, which will continue to drive growth in the VCC market. CHALLENGES/OPPORTUNITIES As previously stated, the dramatic growth of mobile devices is quickly changing how end users are interacting with software. The speed of mobile device adoption is nearly unprecedented in the enterprise, and many organizations are struggling to keep up with the demand. This demand is driving client virtualization adoption among many organizations that have previously passed on the technology. Many IT organizations will find that testing and proofs of concept take longer and cost more for desktop virtualization technologies than for many other technologies that they deploy. To maximize ROI on these projects, organizations must have a comprehensive testing phase so that there are no significant surprises when the technology is put into production. Furthermore, there are many potential "gotchas" associated with desktop virtualization that can be easy to miss unless the pilots take into consideration all the variables that exist in the production environment. To that end, it is important to note that desktop virtualization is fundamentally different from server virtualization, and organizations should not expect an immediate ROI. While short-term, tactical adoption of client virtualization could prove useful in gaining management buy-in, a successful desktop virtualization implementation is a journey of continuous optimization and process improvements. Any expectation of quick-and-dirty cost reduction through desktop virtualization is likely unrealistic. To address the complexities associated with the use of desktop virtualization architecture, IT organizations should take a conservative approach regarding the setting of expectations with their management teams. This will ensure that projects are not "oversold" and that the reputation of the technology is not damaged if certain objectives are not met. As with any major IT initiative, gaining executive sponsorship is critical to success. Likewise, IDC encourages IT management to consider hiring services organizations, such as HP, that have built practices specifically around the planning and implementation of virtualization environments. 2015 IDC #255785 9
CONCLUSION Desktop virtualization is enabling businesses to move from PC-centric IT to data-centric and even cloud-centric IT. In the era of mobility and BYOD, IT needs to shift from the PC-centric world of managing and protecting individual PC components, such as hard drives, to a datacenter model where corporate data is centrally stored, managed, and secured. In this model, users are given access to the relevant data using their own or assigned devices, and user data management can be centrally governed. This is a key initiative for CIOs as they try to transform their IT departments from asset management outfits to service delivery organizations. An agile, scalable, and cost-effective client virtualization infrastructure helps CIOs achieve this metamorphosis and provides a measurable ROI. An analysis of customers deploying client virtualization solutions in production clearly shows that IT organizations can expect to experience significant value when deploying the technology appropriately. Furthermore, because desktop virtualization leverages the benefits associated with a flexible foundation, made possible through hypervisors, IT organizations can begin to manage users and desktop use cases that typically were difficult to control before the advent of desktop virtualization. As a result, IDC expects that client virtualization will experience continuous growth through 2018. Total customer count is expected to continue to rise well into the second half of the decade. As the solution matures, it will become increasingly applicable to greater portions of organizations and a greater breadth of industry verticals beyond the typical healthcare, finance, government, and education segments that dominate the market today. 2015 IDC #255785 10
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