Dear C4L community,
One of the VPs on campus asks me from time to time on trends with
virtualization in academic settings -- specifically, virtualized desktops.
My own response (qualified with "I am not an IT person, but...") has been
that I believe, based on what I read, that this highly-promising technology
isn't more widespread for several interrelated reasons (that are also
applicable to our campus environment:
a) ROI is not as clear, especially in smaller environments (startup cost,
network, storage);
b) university WANs are often not be robust enough to support virtualized
desktops (and I'd add, we're on an uphill Sisyphean climb with
bandwidth--there will never be enough of it);
c) outside of the lab/classroom environment (where I think an argument can
be made for virtualization, if other conditions are met, and the campus has
the expertise to deploy/manage this environment), the ROI of a virtualized
desktop may be mooted by the need for individualized desktops;
d) it's a single point of failure.
My down-home-country-librarian observation that I always tack on (with
plenty of disclaimers) is "If virtualization were the answer, we'd see more
of it by now." I realize that's a humble insight, but given how many talks
I've been to over the past decade about what virtualization *would* be
doing, versus what it *has* done, I think it's not entirely invalid.
I also pointed the Veep toward this article:
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/061809-desktop-virtualization.html
So... any thoughts? Resources? POVs? Etc.? (If you want more context for
this inquiry, write me off-list.)
Thanks, dear old C4L community--
Karen G. Schneider
Director for Library Services
Holy Names University
http://library.hnu.edu
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