To accommodate its offshore development in China and India, Quest set up PCs in an empty office, installed all the applications and got the machines up and running. “Offshore developers would then have to use standard Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to access the PCs, which was sometimes a flawed and slow connection,” explained Carol Fawcett, VP of Information Services. “We also had concerns over theft of these unattended, remotely accessed machines.”

Another concern of Quest was the vulnerability of un-patched machines and inactive or outdated virus protection.

After evaluating a number of VDI solutions, Quest was most impressed with vWorkspace, one of its own applications that had been integrated into its product portfolio from its 2007 acquisition of Provision Networks.

Using VDI has resulted in significant time and cost savings for Quest. For starters, the set-up time for a virtual desktop takes about 15 minutes, compared to the four hours it would take for a physical desktop. Other savings result from reduced CPU/memory resources, less cube space to maintain, less electricity consumption and decreased maintenance activities.