KEY TOPICS

Keeping The Lights On

Minimum System Requirements

Time & Effort

64bit Computing

Configuration

Deployment

Low-Carbon Computing

Zero-Carbon Computing

KEEPING THE LIGHTS ON

On average, organisations in the UK spend £3,000 per year providing, configuring and supporting each desktop PC or laptop they own. Source: National Computer Centre.

Security updates, software patches and application upgrades all take time, and the more devices you have to manage the more time and effort you need to consume, just to "keep the lights on".

And by "keep the lights on" we mean, keep the computer doing exactly the same as it did the day before.

All of this time and effort provides no actual benefit to the business, it is just house-keeping and maintenance.

Server Based Computing and Virtual Desktops allow organisations to patch hundreds of desktops at once centrally, reducing this wasted time and effort to a bare minimum.

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Windows XP

Pentium 233-megahertz (MHz) processor or faster (300 MHz is recommended)

At least 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM (128 MB is recommended)

At least 1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available space on the hard disk

Windows Vista and Windows 7

1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)

16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)

DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Although no sensible IT department would ever try and run computers on bare minimum requirements, what the official specifications reveal is that the requirements have increased to between 4 and 10 times what they were previously.

For most companies, this means having to scrap old computers, and buy new ones if the "software upgrade" is not to become a "performance downgrade".

TIME AND EFFORT

It should not be underestimated how much time and effort is required to test and deploy a new operating system on hardware it was not designed to run on.

In the past, IT departments would simply buy a new computer with the new operating system already installed.

Now that budget reductions and spending reviews are happening, the rip-and-replace mentality of old is no longer acceptable to most businesses, and new ways need to be found to keep computers running the right mix of software, at a price the business is willing to pay.

64bit Computing

Modern software is written with the assumption that organisations are moving to new computers and laptops fitted with 64bit processors.

A computer with a 32bit processor cannot run a 64bit operating system, or 64bit applications under normal circumstances.

Desktop Virtualisation can be used to allow a 32bit computer to run 64bit software without making any expensive hardware modifications or upgrades.

CONFIGURATION

Once this equipment has been purchased, most organisations will then spend additional time and money customising and configuring each new PC before it can be deployed.

All of this takes time and resources and in some cases involve the physical transportation of the device from one location to another.

DEPLOYMENT

In larger organisations some IT departments completely erase and overwrite the existing operating system and applications on the computer and replace it with a corporate "image" that is tested and tweaked by the IT department to try and standardise all of the computers in an organisation.

Server Based Computing and Virtual Desktops can eliminate the need to pre-configure or pre-image devices at one location before transportation the end users desk.

It can also deliver a standard, consistent desktop experience across each device without having to repeat each process manually on each device the end user will work on.

LOW-CARBON COMPUTING

When you combine the One Planet Computing Virtual Desktop solution with existing IT equipment you can build a low-carbon computing solution.

ZERO-CARBON COMPUTING

When you combine the One Planet Computing Virtual Desktop solution with existing IT equipment and a renewable energy source such as Solar PV, you can build a zero-carbon computing solution.