TMCnews Featured Article
April 30, 2012
Development of Use Cases Critical for Virtualization
By Susan J. Campbell, TMCnet Contributing Editor
As the enterprise continues to view virtualization as a positive strategy; providers are recognizing that having the proper infrastructure in place is critical to the success of deployment. It’s also important to define exactly how the virtualization platform will be used by various users or groups of users within the organization to ensure all requirements are met.
According to this Carousel Industries report, this step of defining the use of the virtualization platform identifies “use cases”, or a common set of functionality requirements for specific users. These individuals or groups may be a contact center or other groups within the organization that have a specific operating system or application requirements. Hardware requirements are also important to consider.
This important step in virtualization ensures administrators capture what individuals and groups do on a routine basis, making sure all functions and features needed to conduct standard business processes are readily available on the virtualized desktop. Standard use cases tend to include executives, field reps, contact center, offshore contractors, sales, marketing, finance and administrative. Users within these different divisions have specific needs when it comes to hardware and applications.
Creating the use case requires more than just an assessment of the user’s role within the organization; it also demands a close evaluation of the location in which they work. Their primary location may be a physical office, a home-based office, on the road or a combination of any of these. All users must have access to the virtual desktop infrastructure environment, enjoying the level of performance that meets their expectations.
The types of applications, how they are used and how often they are needed are also important considerations in the implementation of virtualization. This step helps to determine just how much bandwidth and processing power is needed and how to properly assign software licensing. Some groups may rely on customized applications, which have to be considered in the migration to virtualization.
The development of use cases leverages a process that demands a determination of the applications or candidates that are and are not ready for application virtualization. This process also ensures the organization can get a head start on an inventory of the required equipment, storage, bandwidth and high-level architectural requirements necessary for the end user.
Virtualization will only deliver the promised benefits if it’s the right fit implemented properly within the organization. The development of use cases may be tedious, but well worth it in the end.
Edited by Jamie Epstein
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