Can the VDI Coalition Accelerate Virtual Desktop Adoption?

It’s called the VDI Coalition and its tagline is: “Accelerating the Effective Deployment of Virtual Desktops.” Xiotech Corp. is spearheading the group, whose ranks also include Silver Peak Systems, GlassHouse Technologies, Virsto Software and Pano Logic. The VDI Coalition’s purpose is to provide customers with more effective means of deploying virtual desktops. How feasible is that? Let’s take a look.

The VDI Coalition is still in its infancy (as evidence from their website) but it has one big goal: to create a best practices blueprint for optimizing VDI environments wherever they may be. The master plan is to eventually remove the barrier of single-vendor lock-in (Microsoft?) while still providing the “highest levels of performance, security and cost containment.” A bi-annual summit is set, with a first in-person meeting planned to be held at The Exec Event in Palo Alto, Calif., Jan. 25-27, 2010.

The VDI Coalition will comprise — and welcome — any and all players from all levels of a VDI solution stack. The group is positioned as a “non-competitive environment” for collaboration on the best VDI practices that accelerate the time-to-value of an actual virtualization implementation.

Here’s a quick overview on what each player is providing:

Where Does Windows Fit In?

Notable pedigree, for sure. But does any of this matter if Microsoft still controls how Windows is licensed in the VDI model?

The short answer is “yes.” The VDI Coalition was established following the results of a VMWorld 2010 survey showed “nearly 70 percent [of respondents] plan to deploy VDI within the next 12 months [but] plans are hindered by concerns about end-user experience, cost and vendor performance claims.” So at the outset, the coalition is very much providing a base of vendors that can offer a blueprint for deployment. Microsoft’s play inside that implementation isn’t necessary, and if it is, at the very least the hurdles to obtaining the right technology for Microsoft VDI can be avoided.

What’s more, no one part of the VDI Coalition is based exclusively on Microsoft technology, nor is it required that a company roll out a completely Microsoft virtualized solution.

It’s worth noting that VMware, Red Hat and other key players in the virtualization space aren’t on board with the coalition — at least not yet, anyway. But the group seems set to change that, as demonstrated by its (tentative) 2011 schedule:

I’ll keep a close eye out on the VDI Coalition as it grows. More importantly, it will be interesting to hear what you, the VAR, thinks. Do you see this banding together of players as helpful to your own deployments?

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