Cincinnati Bell is a candidate wishing to adopt virtualization office. This is because it was found that what is good for the inside of Cincinnati Bell is also a potential new service to its customers phone service. The company is southwestern Ohio, in the first phase of its deployment of office-based virtualization VMware Infrastructure 3 and Sun Microsystems (NSDQ: JAVA) Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. With nearly 3300 computers using employees, it will convert one fourth of them to virtual machines in the first attempt.

“Over the next two quarters, we will convert users to 750 [Sun Ray] clients, primarily call center, help desk, and clerical service,” said Jeff Harvey, senior business consultant Cincinnati Bell and project leader. In addition, many system administrators in the data centre and staff at the centre of operations of the network will also convert to clients with virtualized desktops. go And some sales staff to laptop-Sun laptop as thin client machine.

Calls which prompted the movement, “says Harvey are users of Windows 2000 on personal computers and the company is moving closer to the” end-of-life Windows 2000. Most of what is used on leased assets. We have no choice “but to move on. Moving to clients is a cost-effective alternative to the modernization of hundreds of PCs.

“Different departments have different needs. Why give them all an office of 9 Go? “Has he said, referring to the power users fond of 10 Gb capacity for network access.

In addition, he will not have to tear the whole infrastructure of Windows 2000. “Most of Cincinnati Bell moved to Windows XP,” he says, but he does not need to force all users to upgrade to XP. Remain About eight users on Windows 2000 or Windows 2003, ageing of the current version of Lotus Notes. Six run Windows XP Professional, rather than the standard XP desktop, and two software quality assurance testers take virtual machines running Vista, so that the company can be assured the new it is producing software will work within the framework of a future Vista upgrade, “he adds. host hardware on which the virtual machine is located is likely to be running Windows XP, and one day, Vista, “he adds.

VMware offers its own virtual office infrastructure, as Kidaro startup, recently bought by Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), and other vendors. Cincinnati Bell turned to Sun for Sun VDI is designed to run on top of VMware Infrastructure 3, Cincinnati Bell, which had already installed. In addition, it carries a wide range of end-user interfaces.

VDI Sun reflects the Windows Remote Desktop Protocol user presentations, including Linux, Solaris x86, Macintosh, the various versions of Windows, and Sun Ray thin client. VMware creates virtual machines on a central server, but Sun Desktop Connector VMware located between the pool and end users. Desktop Connector, a portion of the Sun has recently announced 2.0 VDI, manages connections to end users themselves and the policies governing connections.

“At 8:03, it may be necessary to turn 800 workstations,” said Harvey, and Desktop Connector based on 12 “or pictures” to give each user the correct virtual machine. Users 800 upgrade consists of updating or 12 images and allowing each user to receive updates to the virtual machine, a reduction in administrative costs, he said. Desktop Connector may take Microsoft’s Terminal Services Remote Desktop Protocol Protocol, and to translate it into the various end-user interfaces.

As Cincinnati Bell has experience in the use of virtual offices, he began offering customers the option of receiving virtual office machines, run by Cincinnati Bell. “During the last three quarters of our fiscal year, we acquired a small number of customers,” notes Harvey, saying that they were great.

But for the moment, it seeks to deploy additional phases of virtualization office that includes Windows for desktop computers regular PC and laptop users, and more than thin client users. Cincinnati Bell will try to leave as many choices as possible in the hands of end users on what they prefer, but Harvey agreed with the clients, “their low cost is a factor,” and “Sun has a large customer solution lightweight. ”

2.0 VDI Sun makes available at a price of $ 149 per concurrent user.