How Windows 8 Could Change Everything
The PC paradigm has fashioned out of gas. Conventional Windows systems are too difficult to manage and represent to represent much of a security risk - and sales are declining. Lacking a better alternative, you have to live with Windows for the foreseeable future. But now that the sins of Vista and the antiquarian vulnerabilities of Windows XP to Windows 7, what could possibly cause you to have been corrected in Windows 8 upgrade?
The answer may be in the latest build of Windows 8, where Hyper-V 3.0 is found in the Control Panel (see Peter Bruzzese the post ": Revolutionary benefits administrators expect 8 and Windows Hyper-V 3.0") lie. Hyper-V is Microsoft's Type-1 hypervisor - that is, a virtualization layer that runs on bare metal, rather than as a guest operating system. Until now, Hyper-V was only as part of Windows Server. Making it the foundation under the next desktop version of Windows, everything changes.

Why? Because that could result in the best possible solution for desktop virtualization. The current dominant model for desktop virtualization, VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure), where clients run Windows in virtual machines on a server in the datacenter. VDI provides centralized management and security, but it also demands heavy-duty server hardware, enough network bandwidth and constant connection between the server and "client" (usually a terminal), the mobility rules.

A client hypervisor, which is what we think, Hyper-V role in Windows can be 8, a virtual Windows desktop runs on the client instead of the server. This would give you the opportunity to run without a connection to the server, allowing users to their virtual Windows machines with them on a laptop or tablet and still enjoy all the IT manageability and security benefits of VDI. In this scenario, the server component can be much less efficient than a VDI server farm, because it basically backing up files and end-user configurations, instead of running virtual desktop machines.

Client computers can have multiple virtual machines with personalities small performance hit, thanks to the thin type-1 hypervisor. A fundamental split between would a "virtual business machine" and a "personal virtual machine" on the same client. The business virtual machine would be a super secure environment without the personal stuff, or download and run user, changes to this business virtual machine would be synchronized with the server when users were online. If the client device is lost or stolen or the user has ended the relationship with the company, the virtual machine could be remotely killed by admins.

In this multi-VM scenario, users could also be several versions of Windows on legacy applications that supported Linux versions of Hyper-V, or, as speculated Peter Bruzzese, also support Windows Mobile 7 apps. Users may also bring their Macs to work and, Apple provides, Hyper-V was able to slip right under Mac OS X so that the company is running virtual Windows machine next.

A big advantage of IT that are no longer required, is to end-user hardware, only the virtual machine down business, to manage it. In other words, users could buy and maintain their own IT system, as long as it could be the business running virtual machine. Firewall, software distribution, anti-virus, other management agents, and above all, encryption would run in the hypervisor. Virtual machines and terminal services and virtualized applications would be used by a server infrastructure that would be much lighter than a VDI server farm.

IT gets what it wants at a lower cost than that of the VDI and with considerably less effort. It's a great idea, and Microsoft Terminal Services, App-V and MED-V management tools that can be used with client-side Hyper-V, is the company with the absolute best chance to make it happen.

This story, "How could everything change Windows 8," was originally published on InfoWorld.com. Get the first word, which means the most important tech news really with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, InfoWorld.com follow on Twitter.

http://blog.roomwithabrew.com/2011/06/how-windows-8-could-change-everything.html