I had an opportunity to attend BriForum in Chicago several weeks ago (and belatedly found a few minutes to write about it.) There were some really excellent sessions by Shawn Bass, Ruben Spruijt, and many others. In almost every session I attended, the speakers or the attendees discussed how to deal with the complexity created by traditional desktop virtualization. There were sessions outlining ways to overcome numerous challenges, including storage requirements, printing, supporting WAN-based users, antivirus, provisioning servers…and the list goes on.

While we at Wanova are aware of how easy it is to install and work with Wanova Mirage, I thought it might make sense to clarify. Wanova Mirage software gives you the benefits of VDI: centralized management, data protection, and simplified desktop support, plus the benefits of traditional imaging and software distribution tools, like single image management and patching, without the complexity. And, it works with your remote and mobile workers as well.

To run Mirage, you need:

• Mirage Client software – a service that installs directly into the OS on the endpoint (ANY Win XP or Win 7 PC – Mirage doesn’t need Intel V-Pro, or a client hypervisor).
• Wanova Mirage server software – a standard Windows Server service that hosts and manages the desktops images (without executing them – execution runs on the endpoint). A standard quad core 8GB server can manage up to 1000 endpoints.
• Wanova Management service – used to manage the Wanova system.
• Low-end storage – to host desktop images (We love SATA drives).

That’s it. Compare this to a typical VDI deployment, where you need:

• Thin client application or device – including RDP support and other vendor-specific client software.
• Connection broker – mediates access from thin endpoints to the hosted desktop farm, including user entitlement, pool management etc. To avoid it becoming a single point of failure, a redundant broker is required, adding further complexity.
• VDI agent – application that installs in the Windows OS that runs on the hosted images and interacts with the connection broker.
• Image management service – application that runs in the hosting virtualization platform and manages the images.
• A farm of servers – used to execute workloads of active desktops. A typical quad core 8GB server can typically host a few dozen desktops. Imagine how many of those you need for a deployment of thousands of desktops…
• Primary, high-end storage – to host the desktops if you want access rates similar to the  local disk access in physical desktops.
• Virtualization infrastructure and management service – to provision/deploy virtual machines for the hosted desktops.
• Management service– web-based management application (runs on client and server)

I was pleased to hear an IT Director tell me that Brian Madden, during an impromptu session on the show ‘demo’ floor, commented (I’m paraphrasing), “If what you want to do is improve your control of your desktop environment, you don’t need VDI. You should look at Wanova.”

If you would like to see Mirage simplicity in action, you can sign up for a live demo and webinar, and we’ll be posting some video demos soon.