email us at amarts@artifact3.com

Name: Amin Marts. No worries if you mispronounce the first name, I’ll correct you.

What I’m interested in: Simply, finding solutions for problems, excuse me, challenges.

What I bring to the table: Big picture thinking. Ruthless execution. The ability to distill complex topics into bite-sized and easy to digest contextual stories.

Turn On’s: Smart design. Simple solutions to complex problems. Billboards that make me stop, think, and take a picture to share with you. Jargon. Most of all, flowy singletrack.

Turn Off’s: Jargon. Overly complex solutions that don’t scale. Ambiguous messages. Unintelligible handwriting. Skiers who wear Starter jackets.

My Favorite Tools: iPad, Keynote, Mindmeister, DropBox, old skool whiteboards, OmniFocus, Glenn Beck.

Things I (admit) I read: HBR, Economist, anything Seth Godin writes, WSJ, on occasion the International Herald, when feeling snarky The New Yorker.

January’s Wish: To lose the twang I’ve developed from watching too much CMT during Christmas.

Best way to contact me: Through my twitter or email. I’m easy to find.

Posts Tagged ‘client virtualization’

04.07.2011

Solve The “Mobile Backup” Challenge with Desktop Virtualization

In the March 2011 issue of Storage Magazine there is an article by industry guru Curtis Preston on “mobile backup”. The scenarios outline data protection scenarios for laptops and ROBOs (remote offices branch offices). Preston nails the caveats associated with ROBO backup. He’s spot on and there’s little I’d add to his arguments, management suggestions and thought process. On the topic of protecting the mobile user specifically, he missed.

Preston correctly asserts, as users have become dispersed they’ve taken data with them on their laptops, away from the core. This (migration away from the corporate LAN) makes it difficult to backup and protect local data. A common and easy method for ensuring locally created data is saved back to a centrally backed-up file server is by mapping local directories to a central file server. The file server in this case is part of the enterprise backup scheme. This works brilliantly when the user is on the LAN but falls short when they’re disconnected or the file sever isn’t accessible. Moreover, if the user saves data to a local directory that isn’t mapped to a file server he might as well be on the moon.

To mitigate the risk of IP dying on mobile endpoints, there are products such as Carbonite, Mozy and SmartSync which backup local data to either the cloud or the data center. These products work well as tactical point-and-shoot solutions but this is 2011 and you can do so much better. Think strategically.

Enter the distributed desktop. This is not a conversation on desktop virtualization per se, however a core capability of the concept is enduser environment protection. Note, I’m saying “environment protection” opposed to “data protection”. “Data Protection” is what you’re used to. It’s synonymous with flat files, such as Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, images, pdf’s, etc. “Environment Protection” encompasses the aforementioned in addition to applications, end user customizations to the operating system, and the operating system itself. This is accomplished via block level snapshots which are then transmitted back to a centralized server at specified intervals. To preserve bandwidth on the WAN or LAN only the deltas are transferred.

Native user data backup and restore capabilities coupled with smarter, granular and faster provisioning, and enhanced security makes the distributed desktop the go to concept for “mobile backup”.

 

Posted by on 04.07.2011 at 4:08am   Tags: , , , , , ,
0 comments   Email this post

03.30.2011

Client Virtualization…….Everybody Is Doing It

Client virtualization is all the buzz for small and large enterprises alike. Regardless of the vertical, it manages to sneak into most of my conversations with prospects. Typically the immediate questions are:

  • What exactly is it?
  • What can it do for me?
  • How do I sell the benefits to my boss?
  • Should I apply a centralized or distributed approach?
  • Should I host my desktops in the cloud?

There are a number of considerations to think through when determining the right approach but let’s focus on the last two questions:

  • Should I apply a centralized or distributed approach?
  • Should I host my desktops in the cloud?

Fundamentally, the workload, endpoint type and location of the end-user help to determine whether to adopt a centralized or distributed approach. The distributed model is the way to go if:

  • Users are mobile
  • Storage and computing resources are silo’d
  • Virtualization hasn’t been adopted in the datacenter
  • Network bandwidth is limited

As it pertains to moving desktops to the cloud, that can mean a number of things. It could mean you want to stream the desktop to an endpoint device, in which case the backend server is processing the workload. It could also mean you want to store the (desktop) image in the cloud, push it to the endpoint as needed, and have the endpoint process the workload. Either case is technically viable. The caveat for the first being this approach is exceptionally expensive, complex and it doesn’t address the needs of mobile users very well. The second of the two is substantially less complex, infinitely more flexible and it caters to disparate users quite well.

Regardless of your choice, the applications endusers require must be considered as well. Can your must have or line-of-business (LOB) applications be accessed via a browser? Are they client server based? Can they be streamed? Should they be streamed? Are they supported by the vendor if they are virtualized? There are no right or wrong answers. Moreover conducting this exercise aids in the evaluation of dueling approaches and solutions.

As you can tell, there’s lots to think about. No worries if your head is spinning, I’ll fix that shortly. In the upcoming days and weeks I’ll talk through more of the tech and the process for deciding which is right for you. Till then, follow me on twitter for the buzz on client virtualization and the cloud overall. Cheers.

 

Posted by on 03.30.2011 at 6:20pm   Tags: ,
0 comments   Email this post