Sun VDI 2.0 Offers Anywhere, Anyhow Desktops

Sun's rapid move to v2.0 brings a new Virtual Desktop Connector hoping to serve as a "universal translator" for many-to-any desktop delivery. October doesn't seem like that long ago. That's when Sun delivered v1.0 of the company's Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) as another path for delivering VMs to the desktop. There have been no incremental updates as the dev team has been working hard on this major release.

I met with Sun for a preannounce briefing last week.

What does this mean to you and yours?

1. Pick your favorite back end to create "centralized" user desktop environment(s): MS terminal services, VMware, Solaris, Linux, Citrix, etc.

2. Add VDI 2.0 infrastructure to your mix.3. Deliver your centralized desktops via the LAN or WAN to Windows, Mac, Linux, or Solaris users or thin clients (including the company's own Sun Ray boxes) as responsive full-screen environments.

To be clear, Sun isn't selling its own virtualized desktop solution here; the company is betting that customers will choose VDI to deliver other vendors' VM solutions to heterogeneous clients.

Sun is positioning VDI as a universal translator, or desktop broker, permitting any modern client access to systems regardless of native compatibility. Sun is abstracting the target client from the source host platform.

Compatibility issues go away. Desktops can be built based on user need, employee type, or business function on the most appropriate OS. IT departments, subsidiaries, contract-shops, or home-based users can leverage hardware and OS choices that make the most sense on their end.

Sun's marketing folks are hoping this flexible concept, along with VDI's management platform, VPN options, and Sun's long history of delivering remote desktops, will pull in new customers. At $149 per concurrent user license, they might be right.6618