Autocatalysis

Hypervisors for desktops will bring a major change in delivering applications to users. Until today, we had to centralize applications to work with untrusted, privately owned computers. With terminal server or Citrix presented the applications or desktops, without storing data on client machines. The disadvantage was that applications and data couldn’t be accessed offline.  By using Operating System virtualization on desktops, especially with the use of hypervisor technology, this is going to change. It’s going to be a big thing.

Both Microsoft, Citrix and VMware are working on bringing bringing virtualization of “Operating System environments” (OSE) to the desktop. These OSE’s can be regarded as “digital work environments”. 
On our own laptop (or in the future maybe on any smart device), there is a hypervisor installed, whether or not on a piece of read only hardware. On top of this hypervisor more than one operating systems can be  installed.  Our privately owned operating system, and for instance a business owned OSE. They can communicate with each-other like non-virtualized computers, and at the same time, each operating system can be fully shielded from the others.

This technique, nowadays applied in server environments, will make it possible to work with our privately owned devices in totally separated work environments. We can work in an OSE, delivered by our company or organization with trusted data, with company owned applications. The virtual machine will be managed by the organization. At the same time, we can work with our private virtual machine. Maybe, one machine can establish a connection to a trusted network, while the other cannot.

On September 25, 2008 Steve Ballmer (Microsoft) stated the following:

“ Does any of this to me mean that in the long run a significant percentage of the kind of computing people do on clients today will move to the server? I don’t think so. It doesn’t mean it won’t happen. It doesn’t mean some of it will be important. We’re certainly investing. But perhaps I think the most important thing is the notion of really using hypervisors on the desktop as a technique to improve the desktop experience, as opposed to let’s just move all computation and recentralize it. I don’t really think in the world where people kind of like their own personal devices, people fall in love with their phones, their PCs, their laptops, I don’t think it all gets recentralized.” (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/steve/2008/09-25churchill.mspx)

Citrix also plans to deliver the hypervisor in the second half of the year with the first release of a new product code-named Project Independence. “The face of desktop computing will change fundamentally over the next few years. Enterprises have long struggled to meet user demands for flexible computing while controlling costs, improving security and simplifying manageability. Achieving these goals requires the right technology as well as a shift in how IT and the user views desktop computing. Project Independence is a strategic product initiative with partners like Intel, focused on local virtual desktops. “

VMware View is a comparable approach:” Just as virtualization transformed servers in the datacenter, VMware View is transforming the desktop from device-centric to user-centric.”

This is going to happen pretty soon. Application delivery within OSE-containers is a real opportunity to let us work everywhere, for everyone, with or without connections, controlled and uncontrolled, with our most favored equipment. I’m very curious to all the emerging technologies which will arise from this simple decoupling the of the OSE from the hardware on client devices. Probably “to be continued…”

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Eric Groot Infrastructure Application Delivery, Infrastructure, Networking