10 reasons why adoption of application streaming and virtualization will accelerate
29/05/2008
Posted by Simon Dadswell, Channel Marketing Manager, Endeavors Technologies.
You can’t help but feel that while the argument over how quickly the adoption of application streaming and virtualization will accelerate rages on, many of the key factors are being overlooked. The fact is that there are many reasons why application streaming and virtualization is considered a next generation technology. Here are the top ten:
1. Reduced IT expenditure: Credit crunch, downturn or economic uncertainty – call it what you will, every CIO needs to run a tight ship and ensure optimum IT efficiencies. Installing new applications, updates and software patches represents a major cost; not least legacy client server applications that require client software to be installed and managed on every user’s computer which ultimately results in a high cost of system ownership. Application streaming allows IT to control the management and delivery of applications from the corporate data centre and remove the costs of deploying applications, system conflicts, and providing upgrades and fixes. By combining the centralization of IT services with an on-demand application delivery approach the cost of computing and demand from corporate resources can be significantly reduced. Application streaming enables single-click application roll-outs, quick and painless upgrades and patches, and improved software management. It is an ideal strategy for CIOs wanting to reduce the cost of managing software across distributed communities.
2. Dominance of SaaS: Budgets restraints and growing demands on IT management and support have resulted in many CIOs choosing the direction of Software as a Service (SaaS). SaaS allows organizations to deliver software to its customers for rental, subscription or try-as-you-buy in a multi-tenant web environment. It is being touted as the next big trend - according to analysts Dataquest Insight the SaaS market is forecast to have a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.1% through 2011, more than double that for traditional application software markets. The prerequisites of a technical platform for SaaS are strong security, management and control at the server, and good Quality of Service (QoS) between the client and server. It also requires scalability and high performing infrastructure. Application streaming provides the ability to stream desktop applications to PC clients, anytime, anywhere, on-demand without the need for downloads or installs, and is a perfect technology solution for SaaS. Application streaming enables subscription-based solutions to be rapidly designed and architected for the multi-tenant environment and support many customers on one instance of code. Alternatively, of course, CIOs can undertake intensive programs to re-write their application suite for the web.
3. Focus on application performance: as the IT environment becomes increasingly sophisticated, CIOs are dedicating a large amount of resources to optimize the performance of applications. Employees use a wide range of access devices and connect with multiple applications over various networks, whether in the office, at home, or customer facilities etc. At the same time the complexity of applications to be delivered, managed and updated is increasing. Layers of different classes of applications have been introduced over the years which has resulted in spiraling support costs and IT headaches; from slow performing applications and response times to administrators firefighting technical problems and system updates. Application streaming is gaining significant traction from IT managers looking to improve the way they monitor, measure and audit application usage across the enterprise to optimize network bandwidth (only 10-20% of the application is required immediately and the remaining is streamed on-demand), manage application usage and incremental upgrades (via self-service provisioning and centralized management of upgrades and downgrades), and optimize license purchases (e.g. re-use idle licenses, expire licenses, and automatically re-provision licenses) etc.
4. Virtualization hits mainstream: According to industry analysts the Yankee Group, 9 out of every 10 enterprises will have implemented virtualization into their IT infrastructure by the end of 2007. Virtualization comes in many flavors ranging from hardware virtualization where enterprises deploy virtual machines to run an operating system on an entire set of simulated hardware (Gartner predict the total number of deployed virtual machines would reach 3 million by 2009); OS virtualization which enables the OS to be partitioned and cater for several isolated applications which run independently of the physical resources; and the latest trend towards application virtualization which allows applications to be deployed once on a dedicated central server, run side-by-side in a non-native environment and be isolated from the operating system. There are many variants of application virtualization that address specific isolation and conflict scenarios. Configurable application virtualization offers the most flexibility and allows streamed applications to run on the client in fully isolated (sandboxed) mode, fully integrated mode, or any combination between the two. Application streaming provides the on-demand delivery mechanism that leverages the potential of configurable virtualization to improve the compatibility, manageability and delivery of applications.
5. Issue of security and software piracy: According to the fifth annual Business Software Alliance and IDC global study, “software piracy is having a profound impact on technology company’s ability to invest in new jobs and new technologies; harms local resellers and services firms; lowers government tax revenues; and increases the risk of cyber crime and security problems”. It reports dollar losses from software piracy rose by $8 billion to nearly $48 billion and by reducing software piracy by ten percentage points over four years could deliver billions in economic growth and hundreds of thousands of new jobs. The issue lies with traditional distribution methods of delivering applications, where it is relatively easy for software to be copied and installed on additional machines. This has created an environment where managing and controlling application access is extremely difficult and lessons IT control over which and where applications are installed. Since on-demand application streaming does not install the application on the client device, users can no longer copy applications for unauthorized use on other machines. This provides an optimal solution to serve the application security needs of enterprise and SaaS environments, while ensure there is no compromise in end user experience and application functionality.
6. ISVs address the SaaS opportunity: Traditional ISVs are gearing up to provide new tools, programs and models for delivering commercial software to customers under a pay-as-you-go pricing model. They are experiencing fierce competition from the adoption of SaaS applications such as Salesforce.com, Netsuite and Employease, and growing demand from customers who perceive significant cost savings in the SaaS model. They must consider how to embrace new, disruptive technology in an on-demand business environment while preserve their existing client base. Often, ISVs find that a SaaS business model presents many challenges that their technical teams are not used to dealing with, including the issues of multi-tenant software delivery, security monitoring, and support that are much a greater concern than in a typical commercial software environment. Application streaming and virtualization is perfectly suited for their infrastructure build-out requirements. In particular, ISVs can rapidly test and launch new services without large capital investments and without worrying about managing the infrastructure or making changes to their core products.
7. Carriers, ISPs and hosting providers are moving up-stack: Similarly, with commodity hosting and access margins decreasing, many service providers are looking to move up the technology stack and address the opportunities of SaaS. IT outsourcing and SaaS are driving strong demand for high-margin services (according to industry analysts IDC complex, hybrid hosting will account for over 70% of all US hosting growth through 2011). This includes delivering a range of broadband cross-content services to subscribers with one monthly subscription. Many service providers will increase their focus on partnering strategies to expand market penetration as well as the features and functions of their SaaS offerings. The opportunity is to help customers avoid the costly initial outlay on IT resources and free their valuable time. With application streaming and virtualization customers simply install a Player, connect to the internet, subscribe to the service, and stream the application required, on-demand. There is no need to download software, manage desktop conflicts and performance headaches, or update software on client devices. It’s simple, scalable and cost effective.
8. IT managed services reinvented: Traditionally, tier one vendors such as IBM, Unisys and EDS etc. relied on large, multi-year projects to preserve their service-based revenue streams. Today, a growing number of challengers are reinventing the outsourcing market and offering innovative service deals including the full mix of packaged software, business process and IT outsourcing services to integrate on-demand SaaS solutions in the enterprise. The convergence of software and services is accelerating and IT managed services companies are looking to speed-up the launch of productized SaaS prototypes and working solutions. Expect these companies to adopt application streaming and virtualization as a facilities management platform to reduce the cost of delivering existing services or as a business development initiative to revolutionize their outsourcing value proposition. Application streaming and virtualization offers a competitive alternative for the creation of a complete set of innovative solutions to manage, protect, support and optimize customers distributed desktop environment.
9. Enabling the mobile distributed workforce: As more and more employees are on the move, using multiple computing devices and connecting with applications over various networks, they need secure, easy, and instant access to applications on demand. And they also need to have their technical problems solved quickly with minimal disruption. Application streaming and virtualization removes the need to deploy and manage unique clients on ever user’s desktop, the issue of application security and data leaking out of the corporate network and viruses creeping in, and bandwidth consumption problems between the client and server.
10. Environmentally efficient IT: According to a recent report ‘An Inefficient Truth’ from the Global Action Plan ‘there are more than one billion computers on the planet, and the worldwide ICT sector is responsible for around 2% of man made CO2 each year – a similar figure to the global airline industry’. Green IT is becoming increasingly important to an organizations sustainability strategy and requires CIOs to place greater emphasis on energy efficiency, increased server utilization and environmentally conscious IT planning and management. Application streaming and virtualization offers CIOs the capabilities to meet targets for reducing energy costs and improve ICT efficiencies e.g. it enables them to combine a SaaS approach with centralized control to offload demand from corporate resources, significantly improve server utilization and energy consumption (a single application server can serve up to 10,000 users), reduce the cost of network bandwidth by maximizing the carrying power, and optimize the power performance of desktops.
