May
21
Written by:
mdjavaheri
5/21/2009 3:06 PM
Our Mortgage company client has six loan officers who have to use the new version of the mortgage organization software. This new version requires desktops with 2GB physical memory and the Windows Vista Operating System.
The current users have Windows XP with 512MB of memory which are very slow and the CTO wants to prevent users from corrupting their runtime environment by installing unauthorized applications (Skype, games, etc.)
The CTO was faced with purchasing six new workstations at $500 each, plus additional management and maintenance. Our suggestion to the CTO is to request a $1400 initial budget for an interim solution. When he has additional funds in the budget spend up to a total of $4000 on a long term solution. The long term solution includes other requirements and will be discussed in a future blog.
We provided the following road map for our client’s interim solution:
· Purchase a used Dell Poweredge SC1425 with Dual 2.8GHZ Xenon processor
· Purchase an additional 8GB of memory (so the server has at least 10GB of memory)
· Purchase six copies of the Windows Vista OS
· Purchase two 750GB Sata-drives for the server
· Download a free version of Citrix XenDesktop Express
· Set up the Dell server with raid
· Install Citrix XenServer
· Install XenDeskop on their current Windows Server
· Create a Vista image on the XenServer
· Install Mortgage application on the Vista image
· Install antivirus software on the Vista image
· Post all system updates on the Vista image
· Convert Vista to template
· Create six additional Vista VM guests using the template.
· Configure XenDesktop to use the newly created Vista
· Connect to XenDesktop from the client computer
For For the proof-of-concept, we will deploy the free version of Citrix XenDesktop Express on a used Dell Poweredge SC1425 DUAL 2.8GHZ 4GB purchased on eBay with an additional 8GB of memory and two 750GB Sata-drives. The total purchase price is about $600, and each Vista license costs around $130.
The installation will take about day. This includes
· Creating Windows Vista workstation virtual template.
· Installing antivirus software
· Installing Mortgage application
· Configuring the XenDesktop for DDC
The above solution saves our client about $1,500. This saving is on top typical desktop management saving user will have (less patch management, AV installation, and etc). End users get to keep their desktops, but the application environment is kept safe. They can only damage the desktop but still can continue to work by moving to different desktops and connect to their virtual desktops. This solution also gives them exposure to the virtual desktop for proof-of-concept .
Next time we will look at a high level virtual desktop roll out, and how we can scale and grow the solution.
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