What is VDI?

VDI stands for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, using software to virtualize desktops, then deliver that user experience centrally. Instead of users storing their OS, desktop personality and data on individual laptops or desktops, VDI enables desktop data to run centrally on servers maintained by IT admins, and just accessed locally via a traditional PC or a thin client (a network-connected device designed to access VDI images remotely).

Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is the practice of hosting a desktop operating system within a virtual machine (VM) running on a centralized server.

A

Access Control Management

In computing, access control management refers to the management of access to systems, resources or other information for a user or user group. This often includes authentication to prove the identity of the user or group requesting access.

Application Acceleration

Application acceleration is the process of speeding the performance and delivery of applications with network componentry that leverages a variety of caching, compression and encryption methods to gain improved performance from application servers and faster delivery to end-point devices.

Application Compatibility

Application compatibility is the ability and level of support that a particular application may have within a specific run-time environment or operating system, such as the ability for a specific set of web browsers – for instance Internet Explorer or Firefox – to run on Linux.

Application Delivery Controller

An application delivery controller (ADC) is a network device that lives in the datacenter, located strategically between the firewall and one or more application servers. The ADC handles load balancing between servers and optimizes end-user performance and security for enterprise applications.

Application Firewall

An application firewall is a network security device which controls input, output and/or access between an application and a service to protect applications from attacks.

Application Management

Application management is the process of managing the lifecycle of an application, from development to deployment.

Application Migration

Application migration refers to the activities and processes involved in moving from one application to another, from one application version to another, or of moving an application from one operating system to another.

Application Security

Application security refers to measures and countermeasures taken to protect applications from internal and external threats.

Application Virtualization

Application virtualization is a method of abstracting an application from the underlying operating system on which is it being used such that it is no longer installed on the end-user device, but instead delivered virtually to the end-user device.

B

Branch Office Networking

Branch office networking refers to the ability to connect a main corporate office to branch offices via an IT infrastructure that will accelerate, control and optimize all services, including desktops, applications, multimedia and more.

Bring-Your-Own Device

Bring-your-own device (BYOD) is an increasingly popular corporate policy and user movement that allows employees to bring personally-owned devices, such as laptops, tablets or smartphones, to the workplace and to access company information and applications via those devices.

Business Continuity Plan

A business continuity plan (BCP) refers to the processes and procedures a company puts in place to maintain continuous operations during any business interruption, from scheduled downtime or maintenance to unexpected natural disaster or crisis.

C

Caching

Caching is an area of a computer’s memory devoted to the retrieval of frequently-used or requested content. The content, which includes HTML pages, images, files and Web objects, is stored on the local hard drive in order to make it faster for the user to access it, which helps improve the efficiency of the computer and its overall performance.

Client Virtualization

Client virtualization is method of abstracting or separating a user operating system from the underlying device in order to increase security, manageability and supportability. Client virtualization enables multiple OS instances to run on a single device directly on top of the bare metal without interfering with one another and without the need for a fully functional operating system acting as a host layer.

Cloud Architecture

Cloud architecture refers to the components necessary for cloud computing. There are four essential parts, which create a complete cloud computing architecture when combined: a front end platform, back end platforms, a cloud based delivery, and a network.

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is technology that hosts computing services in centralized datacenters and provides access to them via the Internet. Cloud computing is very much a utility, like electricity: sold on-demand, instantly scalable to any volume and charged by use, with the service provider managing every aspect of the service except the device used to access it.

Cloud Management

Cloud management refers to the technologies and software needed for operating and monitoring data, applications and other services that live in the cloud.

Cloud Network

Cloud networks are the combined solution of a private enterprise network with that of the global network footprint of cloud providers. They enable businesses to serve end-users and customers all over the world without the need to maintain a global network footprint of their own. Cloud networks are a key component of cloud converged infrastructure and act as the glue that enables business to extend their infrastructure seamlessly to leverage cloud services.

Cloud Orchestration

Cloud orchestration is the process of automating the configuration and management of complex cloud workloads through a single interface, which provides greater performance and scalability.

Cloud Provisioning

Cloud provisioning is the deployment of a cloud computing strategy which assigns a cloud provider’s resources to the public cloud or private cloud.

Cloud Scalability

Cloud scalability refers to the ability of a cloud platform to increase its size and performance based on current network resources.

Cloud Service Automation

Cloud service automation is the process of automating the deployment of cloud services across a hybrid cloud environment.

Cloud Service Broker

A cloud service broker is a type of software that manages the distribution of workloads between various cloud service providers.

Consumerization of IT

Consumerization of IT refers to the growing trend of new information technology that is consumer-driven. This is a major shift in the IT industry, where large business and government organizations have long since dominated computer usage and development.

D

Datacenter Automation

Datacenter automation refers to the technologies, processes and procedures implemented for the purpose of automating the management of a data center environment.

Desktop Management

Desktop management is the technology, processes and procedures for managing and supporting the laptops, desktops and other end-user computing devices that leverage enterprise IT services and resources.

Desktop Virtualization

Desktop virtualization is technology that centralizes desktops in the datacenter and delivers it to users on demand. It separates the hard-coded components of a corporate desktop, such as operating system or user profile, which allows IT to manage one instance of each and combine them to deliver a secure desktop to users.

Disaster Recovery

Disaster recovery refers to the plans and procedures related to the recovery of computer operations after a natural or man-made disaster such as a fire or an earthquake. Disaster recovery is a form a business continuity which focuses on bringing critical business services back online after a failure.

E

Endpoint Security

Endpoint security refers to a methodology of network protection that requires devices on a corporate network to meet certain standards of compliance before access is granted.

Enterprise App Store

An enterprise app store is a virtual application storefront for enterprise employees. Users can access the enterprise app store from mobile or desktop devices and self-select the software and services they need to interact with to perform work and collaborate to accomplish enterprise objectives.

Enterprise Mobility

Enterprise mobility refers to a shift in business practices, where more employees work outside the office and require secure access to corporate data. This includes using mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets, as well as accessing cloud services, to conduct business.

Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM)

Enterprise mobility management (EMM) focuses on the management of the increasing number of employees using mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets, to conduct business. EMM can refer to best practices or technologies required to maintain enterprise security as more employees use mobile devices to access corporate data.

F

Flexible Workplace

A flexible workplace offers a wide spectrum of work structures that go beyond traditional business scheduling. A flexible workplace may offer flexibility in hours or amount of hours worked, days or number of days worked, or in location of work, such as working from home or from a satellite location.

Flexwork

Flexwork refers to a set of business strategies and solutions that allow for a flexible work schedule, which may include telework from a remote location or working outside traditional business hours.

G

Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB)

Global server load balancing (GSLB) applies layer 4-7 load balancer capabilities and applies them worldwide across geographically distributed server farms to enable business continuity in the event of site-level failure.

H

High Availability

High availability is the continuous operational availability of resources in a computer system during scheduled downtime or system failure.

Hybrid Cloud

A hybrid cloud is a cloud computing environment that combines a private cloud with the use of public cloud services.

I

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) is a provision model in which physical or virtual machines are outsourced by an organization. Pools of hypervisors, such as the Xen® hypervisor, run the virtual machines. This can be scaled up or down according to an organization’s requirements.

IT-as-a-Service (ITaaS)

IT-as-a-Service (ITaaS) is a method of delivering information technology as a commodity. In an ITaaS model, the IT organization acts as a paid service to the enterprise and must compete for its business.

L

Load Balancing

Load balancing is a core networking solution responsible for distributing incoming traffic among servers hosting the same application content. By balancing application requests across multiple servers, a load balancer prevents any application server from becoming a single point of failure, thus improving overall application availability and responsiveness.

M

Mobile Application Management (MAM)

Mobile application management (MAM) refers to software or services responsible for managing access to internally-developed enterprise mobile applications, which can be accessed on company devices or BYO devices, such as smartphones or tablets.

Mobile Application Security

Mobile application security, or mobile app security, is the protection of mobile device applications (apps) from malware, hackers or other malicious attacks. Mobile app security is a chief component of mobile application management (MAM), which protects mobile devices from the risk of exploits via their apps.

Mobile Device Management (MDM)

Mobile device management (MDM) refers to security software responsible for monitoring, securing and managing mobile devices, such as smartphones or tablets, deployed across the enterprise. MDM software is designed to optimize device functionality while protecting data across the corporate network.

Mobile Device Security

Mobile device security refers to the protection of mobile devices deployed across the enterprise. Mobile device security is designed to extend the same protection and policy controls available on-premise to BYO devices such as smartphones or tablets.

Mobile Web Application

A mobile web application is a mobile application (app) that combines web and touch-enabled functionality. Mobile web applications are web-based, which improves device compatibility, but provide users with the look and feel of a native app.

Mobile Workstyles

Mobile workstyles are a category of workstyles that encompasses the various ways in which mobile employees work. Mobile workstyles empower individuals by allowing them to use whatever computing device they wish, from anywhere, to support the most optimal working conditions for their role and job.

N

Network Functions Virtualization (NFV)

Network functions virtualization (NFV) refers to an initiative aimed at reducing the amount of hardware, power and space required to deploy network functions. The concept is designed to virtualize network functions via virtual machines, which would decrease the amount of hardware previously needed for network functions, such as routers, firewalls and load balancers.

Network Virtualization

Network virtualization refers to networks that consist of resources being linked together into a cohesive communication group. Virtual networks are used to sub-divide physical resource groups as a part of a larger network and can even be used to enable multiple virtual machines running on a single laptop to communicate with each other regardless of whether the laptop itself is connected to a network.

O

Online Collaboration

Online collaboration occurs when people meet and work together on the Internet in real time, using the cloud to aid in communication, file sharing, and project management across geographic distances.

Open-Source Virtualization

Open-source virtualization refers to virtualization technologies that are available as open-source software. Examples include the Xen ProjectTM hypervisor from xenproject.org

P

PCI-DSS Compliance

Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) compliance is following a set of policies and procedures created to increase controls around cardholder data to reduce credit card fraud.

Private Clouds

Private clouds are subscription based service infrastructure built and managed by IT and which are open for consumption by the enterprise, either by IT alone, by departments or business units within an organization or by individual users.

Public Cloud

Public clouds are subscription based cloud services that are open for consumption to the general public.

R

Remote Access

Remote access is the act of connecting to IT services, applications or data from a location other than headquarters or other than that which is closest to the data center.

Remote Desktop

A remote desktop is a user-targeted computing environment running somewhere other than a user’s physical location.

S

Secure Access Gateway

A secure access gateway provides remote access to an agency network via a secure link.

Server Virtualization

Server virtualization is the act of separating server-class operating systems from the hardware on which they are traditionally installed through the use of a middle-ware layer. This enables the server hardware to be leveraged as a single pool of capacity such that any instance of a server operating system running as a virtual machine can be hosted anywhere in the pool.

Session Virtualization

Session virtualization uses application streaming to deliver applications to hosting servers in the datacenter. The user connects to the server to which the application has been delivered and the application then executes entirely on the server. The user interacts with the application remotely by sending mouse-clicks and keystrokes to the server, which responds by sending screen updates back to the user’s device.

Software Defined Networking (SDN)

Software defined networking (SDN) is an approach to networking architecture in which network control is decoupled from forwarding. Network intelligence is centralized, which creates a global view of the network.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) refers to Web-based applications enabled for delivery as a subscription-based service to any user with a browser. SaaS also refers to hosted application services that may not have a web front-end but which might simply have APIs that can be called remotely or which have a plug-in or installable component that is interacted with.

SSL VPN

A virtual private network (VPN) is a private communication channel that interconnects networks through primarily public infrastructures (e.g. the Internet). Secure Sockets Layer Virtual Private Network, or SSL VPNs, provide security and encrypted communications through the secure sockets layer tunneling protocols.

T

Telework

Telework is a work arrangement that allows employees to work from home or from other remote locations, using IT and telecommunications such as phone, Internet teleconferencing, e-mail or instant messaging to perform work duties.

V

Virtual Appliance

A virtual appliance (VA) is a virtual machine (VM) image file that is used to simplify application delivery. The virtual appliance consists of a pre-configured operating system environment and a single application.

Virtual Desktop

Virtual desktops may refer to any isolated desktop-class environment dedicated and provisioned for use by a specific user either as a virtual machine or as a session within a client-server environment.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) refers to the part of the IT environment dedicated to hosting desktop operating systems within virtual machines (VM). These virtual machines can run on a hosted, centralized or remote server or servers.

Virtual Laptop

A virtual laptop is a laptop device that utilizes the benefits of desktop virtualization to become a manageable, reliable and secure virtual appliance.

Virtual Machine (VM)

A virtual machine is an operating system environment that has been abstracted from its physical machine such that it can leverage an intermediate software layer to run on any physical hardware. Examples of virtual machines include virtual desktops, virtual servers and virtual appliances.

Virtual Network Architecture

Virtual network architecture refers to a network infrastructure that can be scaled to adapt to any workload. A virtual network architecture integrates network virtualization and cloud computing to create an open virtualization solution that can connect datacenters from any location.

Virtual Workforce

A virtual workforce refers to a workforce not bound by physical or geographic location. Instead, a virtual workforce uses IT and telecommunications such as phone, Internet teleconferencing, e-mail or instant messaging to perform work duties from home or other remote locations.

Virtualization

Virtualization refers to the method of abstracting all aspects of the physical IT infrastructure from the specific environments that it is charged with hosting (e.g. applications, desktops, servers, storage, networks, etc.) thus enabling improved management, control, flexibility, security and utilization of the overall service infrastructure.

W

WAN Optimization

Also known as WAN acceleration, WAN optimization is a collection of techniques used to increase the efficiency of data transfer across a wide area network (WAN). Techniques used to achieve WAN optimization include deduplication, compression, latency optimization, caching, forward error correction, protocol spoofing, traffic shaping, equalizing, connection limiting and service-level rate limiting.

Windows XP Migration

Windows XP Migration refers to the process of migrating a computer’s operating system from Windows XP to Windows 7 or Windows 8. Microsoft will no longer offer support for Windows XP as of April 8, 2014. This means that enterprise IT will no longer receive security updates or other necessary support from Microsoft after this time and thus must upgrade their infrastructure to a more modern platform.

Workshifting

Workshifting is a flexible work arrangement that allows employees to work from anywhere, at any time, on any device.

X

Xen

The Xen ProjectTM hypervisor is a layer of software which replaces the traditionally installed operating system and which runs directly on a computer’s hardware, allowing it to run multiple guest operating systems concurrently. Support for x86, x86-64, Itanium, Power PC, and ARM processors allow the Xen Project hypervisor to run on a wide variety of computing devices and currently supports Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris, Windows, and other common operating systems as guests running on the hypervisor. The xenproject.org community develops and maintains the Xen Project hypervisor as a free solution licensed under the GNU General Public License.

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