I’m happy to preview the completion of the Nexus VDI Showcase (phase 1)!!

VDI is slated to be a bigger opportunity than virtualizing servers by a factor of 5 to 1.  (FYI, Virtual Servers has been the biggest thing in IT for the last 5 years and there’s lots more desktops than servers)  Why such great opportunity?  650,000,000 people in organizations around the world are still on Windows XP and will need to move in the next couple years.  Every VDI user will need resources from Servers (with gobs of ram), Shared Storage (great SSD flash disk use case), Backup/DR, robust network (Juniper), Thin Clients, LCD’s, printers, and Nexus services galore.     

Our objective was to construct a real life, hands on showcase for virtual desktops and virtual application (desktop apps that appear to be installed locally but are actually not).  Getting hands on user experience uniquely allows us to show both hardware options and software functionality, kind of like going to Verizon and trying out the phones.  This new asset will help us streamline that old “proving the concepts” (PoC) drag for VDI selling going forward and will give Nexus a big advantage!

This new addition is a continuation of “value beyond slides” which highlights our 31,000 sq. ft. facility and joins the Network Operations Center (NOC) for our NexEssential Managed Services, Mobile vPods (formerly known as Mobile PoCs), Warehouse, Quality Integration Center (QIC), Delivery Trucks, Digital Media Center, Minnetonka Events Room, and Dispatch (and of course all of our many valued employees).  Going forward we’ll be showing off this new asset with things like:

• Windows – Windows XP and Windows 7 with Office 2007 powered by VMware View 4.5 (newest beta soon to launch)
• Virtual Apps – Internet Explorer version 6, Office 2010, Acrobat all powered by VMware ThinApp 4.5
• Multi-monitor – 4×23” LCD screens at 1900×1200 (also 3 panels too)
• USB redirection (run USB devices from the local ports just like a physical PC)
• Printing (just like a physical PC)
• Storage (SAN) – EMC, NetApp, Dell, and soon to be HP extensions running in VMware vCenter
• NAS – My Docs running on network shares rather than locally (looks identical though)
• iPad – See Windows 7 running via Wyse PocketCloud
• Biometric Single Sign-on (SSO)

Contact myself if you or anyone you know is interested in booking a tour/visit of the showcase.

Phase 2 will include the additions of offline VDI via new laptop, Citrix XenDesktop/XenApp, CAD, Medical Images, digital signage, and more dynamic demos like a live conversion of an XP user to Win 7/virtual apps + VDI DR failover (one site to another).  Stay tuned for future announcements on that roadmap.

Big thanks to:

• Owner support – Dan, John, Joe
• Engineering – Chuck (leader), Tim P, Matt, Mike, Tim H (resource allocation, collaboration)
• Marketing – Andy Fox
• Vendor Support – Scott Strom
  • VMware – Jim Yanik
  • Wyse
  • HP
  • Dell
  • NetApp – Stewart Vaughn & team
  • EMC – Chad Sakac & team
  • Ergotron
  • Indigo Identityware
  • Pano

This showcase will be the centerpeice of August 18th “Desktop Kungfu 2010” (stay tuned for the info on that).  In the meantime check out the attached and below links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VZSUBgajPw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKt2GYgRB_s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7XIzgRFcAY

 (New pictures and videos coming)