So, this is my first official blog written (and posted) from an airplane at 30,000 feet. As I post this blog, I’m somewhere over Portland in an airplane using the in-flight wireless service. First thought – how have we gone this long without wireless on a plane? This is really, really cool. Second thought – this scenario pretty much defines mobility. Third thought – when given a choice between the pizza and the salmon on the plane, I always go pizza. I know it’s not as good for me, but it’s also less likely to kill me if the airline’s “chef” had a bad day at the office. But I digress…here’s the really, really cool part…

While using the plane’s in-flight wireless service, I’m synchronizing with my Centralized Virtual Desktop (CVD) in our data center in San Jose. Because Wanova doesn’t require a hypervisor, I’m working as I normally would. The only difference is that I have an icon in my system tray which tells me whether I’m working online, offline, fully protected, etc.. I’ve been in IT for longer than I’d like to admit and I’ve never had this kind of “cool factor”…ever.

Here’s the way Wanova works. I have a client running on my laptop. Our software runs on a physical or virtual server in the data center. Conceptually speaking, we centralize my laptop in the data center in a CVD where IT can centrally manage, protect, and support it. The client on my laptop has a cache, which allows me to work offline. When I re-connect, any changes made by IT are optimally downloaded to my laptop, and (based on IT policy), any changes I make are optimally uploaded to my CVD. Now, the only way this works effectively over the WAN, VPN, or, in this case, at 30k feet is we have technology called “Distributed Desktop Optimization” (DDO). Basically what this means is that we eliminate any redundant data at the network and storage layers. So, we never have to send any redundant data or store any redundant data. And, because we work at the file and block level, most of the changes I would make already exist on the server side so they don’t have to be sent or stored.

For all I know, our IT group in San Jose may be applying a patch or fixing an issue, and I’m working as I normally would – regardless of whether I’m offline or online. So, there’s a huge productivity benefit both for IT and for me as an end-user. And, I can honestly say that my user experience is unaffected. I can’t even tell that our client is running on my laptop. This is really cool stuff!