Old fashioned shootout between vendors in virtual desktops. Here the VMware View 4 takes the software side over Citrix, and for hardware the Panologic products come out on top over nComputing and Wyse.
Virtual desktop infrastructure is a hot topic for a number of reasons. Companies familiar with server virtualization are looking to extend to the desktop. Microsoft is delivering virtualization capabilities in Windows 7. And VDI offers a way to control desktop costs, improve security and management -- even deliver enterprise apps to phones and other mobile devices.
VDI desktop cheat sheet
With VDI, end users call up a terminal-like session on a remote host machine. Client sessions can run on Mac or Linux operating systems, but typically they run Windows. On the server side, the host runs Windows Server, often a full instance of a virtual machine.
We tested six software-based products that are designed to provision, authenticate and manage VDI sessions. We also tested three hardware-based virtual desktops. We looked at the client side experience and the server-side maintenance and administrative qualities of each product.
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