The virtual client computing (VCC) market has grown rapidly, despite the economic downturn over the past few years. The centralized virtual desktop (CVD, aka virtual desktop infrastructure or VDI) segment has led the way in facilitating this growth. IDC expects to see significant production deployments of centralized virtualized desktops in the near term and a continued strong adoption ramp through 2014. However, the traditional datacenter model is ill-suited to facilitate the growth of CVDs. Running virtualized desktop from the datacenter requires technologies that are optimized to handle the additional processing, bandwidth, and storage requirements that traditional datacenter model can't handle at scale. Additionally, implementing datacenter technologies that are optimized for CVD is exceedingly complex and cost prohibitive, stalling many on-premises CVD projects.

The benefits of server virtualization are widely accepted and the majority of organizations have deployed virtualization technologies. Organizations are virtualizing mission-critical workloads but must now consider virtualization's security and compliance implications. Virtualization and security professionals now understand that there are significant security challenges that must be addressed in the new virtualized reality. Companies now acknowledge the potential real-world threats against virtualized environments. As security awareness increases among virtualization experts, enterprises will struggle to find the most effective and efficient ways to proactively protect virtualized environments. Our research indicates that while many organizations are leveraging existing data center security appliances to address new virtual security and compliance issues, there is an increasing adoption of virtualization-aware and virtualization- specific security solutions for mission-critical applications and scalable cloud-ready deployments.

Centralized virtual desktop, or CVD, is a form of server-based computing. CVD utilizes a server-grade hypervisor to host multiple unique and isolated client operating systems aboard a single server or group of servers in the datacenter environment. The virtual desktops are delivered to end users' devices via the network. IDC expects that CVD will continue an upward growth trend through 2014. As CVD technology matures, it will become increasingly applicable to greater parts of organizations and a greater breadth of industry verticals beyond the typical healthcare, finance, government, and education verticals that dominate the CVD market today.

Business Challenge: CareCore National is a specialty benefit-management company that pioneered evidence-based medicine for treatments. Doctors and nurses access CareCore's decision-support systems to obtain prior authorization for procedures such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). CareCore applications are hosted on a private cloud built with the Vblock Infrastructure Platform, which includes Cisco UCST B-Series Blade Servers, Cisco Nexus® 7010 at the backbone, and Cisco® Nexus 1000V Distributed Virtual Switches at the access layer. The CareCore IT team needed an efficient way to isolate training server VMs from production server VMs. The training VMs and production server VMs belong to the same network domain, so isolating training VMs previously required four pages of security rules, based on source and destination IP addresses. Enforcing firewall security policies based on VM attributes instead of IP addresses would lower management overhead and the risk of configuration error.

Organizations deploying a desktop virtualization solution benefit by using servers that support many users and properly scale with additional servers. Using servers with high memory and processing capabilities lets and IT department save money by requiring fewer servers to support their virtual desktop load. In Principled Technologies' tests in our labs, a single Cisco UCS B250 M2 Extended Memory Blade Server built on Intel® Xeon® 5600 Series processors (X5670) running Citrix XenDesktop® 4 with Citrix XenServer 5.6 supported 112 Microsoft® Windows® 7 virtual desktops and scaled perfectly, without sacrificing performance, by supporting 784 virtual desktops when we added six more blades as measured by Login VSI Beta3 parameters.

The Cisco Virtualization Experience Infrastructure (VXI) Solution together with Citrix XenDesktop delivers unified virtual desktops and applications, voice and video services to users anywhere, anytime, and on their choice of device. The solution increases mobility and flexibility, resulting in greater productivity across a global workforce. Cisco VXI simplifies deployment, reduces overall cost and minimizes implementation risk of deploying the new virtual workspace with an end-toend, open and validated solution. It builds on Cisco's data center, network and collaboration technologies, combined with services, solution support and advanced desktop virtualization technologies from Citrix. The end result is a flexible, secure IT infrastructure with uncompromised user experience.

Growing adoption of the Unified Communications and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure creates the potential for conflict, as VDI solutions must support real-time voice and video applications, and vice-versa. But VDI combined with UC also offers opportunities to simplify desktop environments, and securely extend UC to mobile platforms. IT architects must proactively plan for the combination of UC and VDI or risk finding themselves with users disenfranchised from one or the other, wasted resources, and thwarted strategies.

Challenge: Serving Grand Rapids and the West Michigan area, Metro Health is an integrated health system that includes a new state-of-the-art hospital, the Metro Health Medical Group, other affiliated physicians, neighborhood outpatient centers, a philanthropic foundation, the Metro Health Village and campus, and more. To continually enhance its services, Metro Health decided early on that electronic medical records (EMR) were essential, choosing Epic as its EMR vendor. Yet the Metro Health team realized that simply implementing EMR was not enough. The system needed to be taken one step further by providing a highly available, efficient, and flexible desktop environment that would deliver EMR to caregivers and administrators whenever and wherever they needed it.

Oak Hills Local School District supports academic success by providing students with more access to the classroom. Challenge: The Oak Hills Local School District is located right outside the center of Cincinnati, Ohio. Encompassing both the Green and Delhi townships in western Hamilton County, the school district consists of five elementary schools, three middle schools, and one high school. In total, there are nine school buildings with approximately 8100 students. Oak Hills provides an increasing number of educational opportunities for students and adults with gifted programs, special education services, vocational options and community education.

Business Challenge: Beaufort Memorial Hospital (BMH) has been recognized for nine consecutive years as one of the nation's Most Wired Small and Rural Hospitals, according to Hospitals & Health Networks magazine. From robotic surgery to bedside medication verification, BMH uses technology to help deliver optimum patient care with flexibility and cost-effectiveness. The BMH data center supports approximately 1600 users at its main hospital and satellite physician offices with applications including: . Meditech, BMH's primary clinical application . Picture archiving and communication system (PACS) . Physician office electronic medical record (EMR) system . Microsoft Exchange and productivity applications

The Yakima School District encompasses 14 elementary schools, five middle schools, and four high schools to serve 15,300 students. Technology is an integral part of learning today, and the school board recently renewed its emphasis on implementing technology to prepare for the state's move to online testing and to provide students with the best learning platform possible.

Seattle University (SU) is a Jesuit Catholic school located on Capitol Hill in Seattle, Washington. SU is the largest, independent, multidisciplinary university in the Northwest, with 7751 students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate programs. SU was ranked the seventh best school in the Western region in U.S. News & World Report's "Best Colleges 2010" list, based on its full range of master's and undergraduate program offerings. "SU is one of the most culturally diverse, genuinely urban universities in the Northwest region," says Bob Dullea, vice president of University Planning for Seattle University. "We are dedicated to educating the 'whole' student into professional formation, and empowering leaders for a just and humane world."

This guide provides practical information to help you prepare your data center for the cloud with Unified Networking, scaled-out storage, trusted server pools, and intelligent power management.

Read the results of this survey of 200 IT professionals sounding off on a wide variety of cloud topics.

This white paper discusses eight important areas where Citrix NetScaler beats F5 in making enterprise networks cloud ready.

This paper outlines the compelling benefits of consolidating networking services, and details why competing efforts pursued by F5 technology come up short for critical ADC consolidation projects.

Ready for 2048-bit SSL? The Iron Age is officially over. The Cloud Age is here. Don't let stronger security compromise performance. Download the Citrix and Verisign White Paper and the NetScaler Performance Comparison now.

This report examines the plant asset management issues facing the Energy sector, as well as the solutions and benefits that an integrated enterprise content management (ECM) platform can provide.

This white paper sponsored by HP + Intel discusses Exchange business drivers, market dynamics, and storage trends -- and how HP + Intel storage solutions can enhance an Exchange environment. Organization large and small need to consider all the factors in determining the right infrastructure and HP storage solutions delivers 100% availability, reliable and predictable performance, and comprehensive data protection.

Learn how HP CloudSystem Matrix and HP 3PAR Utility Storage provide a solid, flexible foundation for your cloud environment.

Server virtualization has transformed corporate IT -- companies have enjoyed major cost savings and have gained flexibility and efficiency. But this has also led to a proliferation of virtual machines and servers that threaten to overwhelm data movement and storage technologies. In this IDG Tech Dossier, learn how utility storage makes for massive consolidation, flexibility and scalability, so IT departments can reduce storage infrastructure and lower costs while improving their ability to respond to fast-changing needs of business units.

Alice Owen, Executive Director of Technology for Irving Independent School District, discusses how she effectively secures and tracks her district's 12,000 computers. Leonard Niebo, Director of IT for Brick Township Public Schools leads our discussion on overcoming the roadblocks of a manual auditing process, specialized computing needs and incidents of loss and theft.

Working closely with Absolute Software Chicago Public Schools is managing over 100,000 PCs, Macs, and iOS 4 devices and have recovered over 350 stolen computers allowing them to invest in the future (versus replacement computers).

Leonard Niebo, Director of IT for Brick Township Public Schools leads a discussion on overcoming the roadblocks of a manual auditing process, specialized computing needs, and incidents of loss and theft.

Dysart Unified School District (DUSD) is Arizona's fastest-growing school district. Despite the district's extremely rapid expansion, it remains focused on its mission of "Increasing in Excellence" - or, preparing students for life in the new century.