In my last post I have explained a little bit about my view on “Convergence of IT technologies and enterprise business processes“. Today I’d like to dig a little bit deeper into vendor offerings in those areas, especially when it comes to the technology stack explained in my first post “Defining Desktop virtualization – a first attempt“:
Graphic: Example of layering the computer stack
This graphic should illustrate abstraction between multiple layers of user devices, either local or hosted. Virtualization offers much more technologies, but I’d like to focus on the concept of abstraction of:
- Data
- Profile
- Application
- Operating System
- Hardware
Those layers define a end-user workspace for me. Hardware could be a PC or smart device, either a server running in the data center. Each layer could be owned personally or provisioned by the enterprise.
In general this concept defines today’s workspace for end-users. The end-user still needs a device to consume and create business related content. It is much more complex compared to a Microsoft and Windows only world.
From a provisioning perspective those layers are delivered to the end-user’s device:
- Local
- Hosted
- Streamed
From this perspective I have tried to match product vendor solutions into this concept and to create a matrix on the big three software vendors from an enterprise view. My goal is to show the complexity of today’s workspace from an administrators view what products he could choose to architect the end-user workspace. Here is the result:
Table: Vendor Product Technologies for End-user Workspaces
I am not that satisfied with my research, good chances that there might be a technology or product missing =). The view on mobile technology is missing
Looking forward to get some feedback regarding the concept and matrix, would love to hear from you.
Patrick Sauerwein | @virtual_patrick 