AgdaPkt 2012-09-10 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

6.4.G. - Page 1 RE PO RT To the Honorable Mayor and City Council From the Cit Mana er September 10, 2012 SUBJECT Appropriation of Funds to implement a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure RECOMMENDATION Approve, by resolution, the appropriation of $215,000 from the capital projects fund to purchase and implement a virtual desktop infrastructure. BACKGROUND Desktop computers are a core technology used by City employees in City offices. They provide end users with a customizable and flexible desktop environment. However, they have also brought a series of challenges that have resulted in high operational costs. These costs include help desk personnel, repair and maintenance, and managing software licenses in addition to the cost of the hardware resulting in a high cost of ownership. The Information Technology (IT) Division of the Finance Department has already successfully implemented a virtual desktop environment for the public terminals in our main library. This has resulted in increased availability for the patrons while reducing the staff time required supporting them. Based on the success of this, IT has entered into an agreement with the City of Burlingame to implement a virtual desktop environment in their main library as well. ANALYSIS Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is an intelligent desktop infrastructure that delivers higher control and manageability of the desktops by IT staff while giving a familiar, high availability experience to the users. Virtual desktops are essentially "dumb terminals." A "dumb terminal" is a relatively low cost device with no moving parts, such as a hard drive, which are the most common points of failure in a traditional PC. Virtual desktops store and retrieve their operating system, user applications, and user data on a server located in the data center as opposed to traditional PCs which store these on a local hard drive. The end user gets a complete desktop that behaves just like a normal PC. If the terminal fails for any reason all that is needed to get the user back online is to plug in a new terminal. In the traditional PC environment a failed component requires finding and replacing the broken component and then reloading the operating system and user applications. This can take several hours or days depending on which part failed.