Jeff Fisher

The excitement around virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is being tempered by the concern that VDI can't be cost-justified if it doesn't completely transform traditional desktop management - and by the belief that the only way to achieve this is with stateless desktops. The bad news is that truly stateless desktops won't be commonly available for at least another five years. But there is good news and that is, contrary to conventional wisdom, deploying virtual desktops and achieving state separation in client operating environments are not one and the same. In fact, although they will likely cross paths, they are fundamentally different objectives and should be viewed as separate endeavors. The reality is that enterprises can benefit from VDI today without capital inv... (more)

Desktops as a Service (DaaS) and Cloud Computing – An Overview

Jeff Fisher's "Desktops as a Service" Blog Generally speaking, DaaS is about transforming desktops into a cloud service. However, there are already a number of different approaches to DaaS and they vary considerably. To start, I thought it would be helpful to classify the different versions of DaaS as they exist today. Cloud computing has reached an absolute frenzy in the IT media. It seems... (more)

Cloud Hosted Desktops

It's August 2007. VMware goes public and virtualization, in all its forms, reigns as the leading IT infrastructure megatrend. Fast forward to the summer of 2008 and virtualization is already giving way to the new king of IT media - cloud computing. All of a sudden, the conversations about how virtualization will transform existing enterprise infrastructure shift to talk about how virtual... (more)

The logic of cloud-hosted desktops

Those of you who track Desktone and this blog know that lately we've been spending more time talking about cloud-hosted desktops. This is obviously due in part to the incredible dialogue that's surrounded cloud computing over the past year. However, it's also because we believe that cloud-hosted desktops can and will fundamentally change enterprise IT's willingness and ability to leverag... (more)

"Virtualize. Centralize. Optimize."

This post has been a long time coming. It’s basically one of the core philosophies we live by at Desktone and it happens to run contrary to everything else you’ve read about virtual desktops and state separation. At the core of the argument is the premise that deploying virtual desktops and achieving state separation in client operating environments are two fundamentally different object... (more)