The New reality: Virtual Desktop Management

A longstanding reality is that distributed, enterprise desktop management is fraught with problems. It’s expensive, hard to secure, puts data at risk, does not deal well with mounting compliance pressures, has trouble keeping pace with quickly evolving applications, and is hard for IT managers to keep updated. And enterprise desktop management is important – it’s the key to knowledge worker productivity.

Enter Sychron’s OnDemand Desktop and a new reality.

Sychron’s OnDemand Desktop solution provides a complete virtual desktop management platform using Sychron’s Habitat^TM methodology that enables IT to cost-effectively provision, manage, and secure enterprise desktops from a centralized, server-based virtualization platform.

Managing hundreds or thousands of virtual desktops is easier and more cost effective and does not force end users to compromise. In fact, end users will have significant advantages with instantaneous, single sign-on, immediate access to their workspace, and protection for their data.

Benefits of OnDemand Desktop:

• Improve service levels for higher productivity
• Faster, easier delivery of corporate applications and upgrades (minutes, not days)
• Reduce IT complexity and management challenges
• Save on hardware and operational costs
• Better security and data protection for compliance
• Increased energy efficiency
• Dramatically reduce user logon/logoff times
• Access to multiple desktops at the same time 
• Roam from device to device

Key Features of OnDemand Desktop

Sychron’s approach to virtual desktop management is built into the OnDemand Desktop product. The methodology revolves around Habitats, a dynamic Sychron entity that allows administrators to link a user or a group of users to the virtual desktop workspaces they are authorized to access. With Habitats, you can automate the provisioning and delivery of as many job-specific images as the organization needs, all as well-managed, configured workspaces based on business requirements (job role, directory-based security policies, etc).

Command Centeris the IT manager’s desktop virtualization nerve center – this GUI allows for simple administration of server clusters and the Habitats on them. Administer virtual desktops with the ability to create, delete, power on/off, and reprovision them as needed, all in accordance with business policies and changes in the server population.

OnDemand Desktop is a flexible solution with support for heterogeneous environments and multiple platforms including Microsoft (Hyper-V, Virtual Server, and Terminal Server) and VMware and is architected to support additional platforms.

Users can securely access and request virtual desktops via a browser, thin client, or standalone client. Single or multiple Portals support scaling and availability.

And much more. Read our OnDemand Desktop datasheet for additional details.

Example architecture for OnDemand Desktop

Detailed Features:

• Heterogeneous platform support:
  • VMware ESX™, Microsoft Hyper-V™, Terminal Server platforms, hardware compatible with listed virtualization platforms
• Automated operation
  • Using built-in server clustering and runtime policy engine
• Server flexibility
  • Clustering of heterogeneous server nodes — add nodes to/remove nodes from cluster at runtime
  • VMware ESX™, Microsoft Hyper-V™, Terminal Server platforms, hardware compatible with listed virtualization platforms
• Operating systems
  • Microsoft XP™, Microsoft Windows 2003 Server™
• Management console
  • Single, portable application with Windows look and feel
• User authentication
  • Seamless, robust Active Directory^TM integration
• User authorization
  • Via users' membership in directory security group(s)
• System administration
  • Sychron Habitats™ simply/elegantly enable users to be assigned resources
• Application management
  • Per centrally maintained desktop OS + application builds (i.e., images)
• Automated desktop image deployment and updates
  • Fully automated via image assignment to Habitats – one-to-one or one-to-many
• Habitat deployment on virtual desktop clusters
  • Fully automated after Habitat creation or runtime configuration updates
• Service Level Agreements
  • Guaranteed session resource delivery
• Runtime automation
  • Automated Habitat and virtual desktop deployment — hands-free operation on clustered servers
• Client access
  • Browser, thin client, and standalone client with secure access via Sychron Portal
• Local and secure remote access
  • VPN solutions compatibility