• DesktopArchitecture

IT Desktop/Branch architecture

• Goal is to have a long term vision road-map to drive decision in a organization, relating to user desktop applications and hardware.

Problems we need to solve and trends

• Constant hardware refresh, due to OS requirement growth.
• Reduction in technical skills in small branches.
• Support cost of remote servers.
  • Hardware - Server, diskspace.
  • Software - Windows Server, Oracle Database, Antivirus, etc.
  • Environment, UPS, cooling, security.
• Security of desktops.
  • Virus and Trojan threats, becoming more sinister and focused on data theft or illegal access to systems.
  • Data leakage due to loss of device containing corporate information
• Cost of software updates, and security fix's rolling in daily.

Trends

• Centralize everything
• Reduce data stored on remote devices.

New direction. Short term

• Visualize desktop onto central server, delivering only screen and keyboard to end user.
  • All Data centralized.
    • + Easy migration from device to device, connecting back to central server infrastructure.
    • + Applications can be delivered in ideal environment e.g. specific os version. Application virtualization.
    • + Accelerated deployment
      • Upgrades to application available with reload to all clients.
      • New application roll-out in a day.
    • + Reduced risk
      • More than one version of application available e.g. Old and New
      • Fast roll back.
    • - Cost
      • Server hardware must be capable of running all the user desktops.
      • Redundancy and DR needed for central servers due to high impact of failure.

5 Years + Longterm

• Browser based application delivery. (All application are web enabled.)
  • Only using HTML5 and Javascript.
    • + Lightweight secure, standardized delivery of any application.
    • + Allow business flexibility in accessing applications.
    • + Allow business flexibility in selecting and changing end-user platforms as needed, or supporting multiple platforms.
    • + Secure access using industry standard SSL encryption and certificates.
  • Cross browser standards based web applications.
    • + allow for multiple platforms, e.g. Tablets, Phone, Thin-terminal.

Architecture and procurement guidelines

• All new packages and development should push for pure web based interface.
  • Only HTML and Javascript on desktop.
• No new applications or services should be deployed to distributed servers with the goal of centralizing all services.

CategoryArchitecture