User experience key to success of virtualization deployments

User experience is key to the success of virtualized workspace deployments according to a new commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting.

The study, ‘What You Need to Know Before Undertaking Your Virtualization Journey,’ identified two key themes in physical to virtual migrations. It was revealed that:
1. Cost reduction is the primary rationale for deploying desktop virtualization however user experience is both the top metric for success and most frequent obstacle in a migration project.

2. When businesses put the user first and got virtualization right, it delivered a powerful platform for workforce enablement and increased user productivity
The survey of 300 IT professionals uncovered user experience issues that reduce the number of users who are successfully migrated and force over-provisioning of infrastructure, both of which undermine cost saving goals. In fact, over a quarter of the projects Forrester studied went over budget.

When businesses started with the user experience they were more likely to achieve their cost reduction goals. The survey recommends, “Make user experience your prime objective”. Those organizations that delivered successful virtualization projects reported a variety of benefits including faster incident resolution, faster logon times, fewer data breaches, better security and faster disaster recovery.

In fact more than half (51%) reported employee productivity had increased when working across multiple devices as a result of virtualization. 60 per cent cited end user satisfaction as a top measure of project success.

Based on the results the study recommended that user experience should be the primary objective of a virtualization deployment, stating: “The value of virtualization comes from improved workforce enablement, not primarily from a reduction in cost. Put employee use cases first when building the plan. And don’t pinch pennies where user experience would be compromised—trading the productivity of the organization as a whole for small gains in IT efficiency is a false economy. Let the usability requirements dictate the architecture, and run the operational cost analysis from there.”

The survey also recommends that organizations planning on a virtualization project invest in better tools, “Fundamentals still matter, so be generous in your server density planning and invest in tools that will make managing profiles, privileges, and policies easier. Finally, invest in areas that will accelerate user acceptance, such as application and personality persistence, elevated rights management technology for installing software, and employee self-service”.

Ravi Khatod, SVP of Marketing, AppSense, commented: “These findings highlight the importance of building user experience into any virtualization deployment from the start. By focusing on user experience, organizations find their virtualization deployments face fewer technical issues, achieve greater user acceptance, and deliver more quantifiable benefits overall to the business. The research states employees are most likely to embrace virtualization when their connection is speedy, their computing environment is familiar and their content and applications are easily transferred from previous environments. These are all key capabilities of leading User Environment Management (UEM) solutions. As such, UEM can be a critical part of an overall virtualization deployment and enable IT to optimize user experience and productivity.”

Shankar Iyer, Vice President, Products, End-User Computing, VMware, commented: “VMware’s end-user computing portfolio offers the industry’s broadest platform for delivering Windows desktops and applications to end-users. Enterprises have the option to deploy virtual desktops and applications from the data center using VMware Horizon® 6 for VDI and RDSH, from the cloud using VMware Horizon® Air™ Desktops, or locally using VMware Horizon FLEX™. In addition, VMware Horizon Mirage can be used to manage physical desktops. The combination of AppSense DesktopNow and VMware Horizon provides our mutual customers with a virtual desktop solution that is easy to use, along with a great end-user experience.”