Google Cloud is already expanding into five new regions this year – and now Switzerland can be added to the list.

The move to open facilities in Zurich will mean Google has half a dozen regions in Europe, taking the overall total of existing and announced regions to 20. The Swiss zones will open in the first half of 2019, Google said.

“Customers in Switzerland will benefit from lower latency for their cloud-based workloads and data, and the region is also designed for high availability, launching with three zones to protect against service disruptions,” wrote Urs Hölzle, Google SVP technical infrastructure in a blog post confirming the news.

Back in January, Google announced extensive infrastructure expansion plans, with five new regions and three subsea cables launched. The new regions were in the Netherlands – opened immediately with two zones, with the third arriving in March – and Montreal, also open for business, with Los Angeles, Finland and Hong Kong to follow.

Google Cloud’s performance continues to impress, with CEO Sundar Pichai telling analysts last month the company was ‘growing well’ and that deals being struck were ‘larger’ and ‘more strategic.’ The company does not disclose specific cloud revenues, but according to its most recent financial results its ‘other’ revenues – of which Google Cloud is a part – hit $4.35 billion, up 35% on this time last year.

Evidence of the company’s more impressive client roster has been seen in recent months through various disclosures. Spotify is a confirmed Google Cloud customer after it came out in their IPO filing, while eagle-eyed observers saw, buried deep in an iOS security guide, that Apple was also a customer. More recently Netflix, the poster child of Amazon Web Services (AWS), confirmed it also ran disaster recovery workloads on Google after a story from The Information, which the company described as ‘overly sensationalised.’

You can find out more about the Switzerland opening here.

Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) can bring significant benefits to organisations looking to be more agile, as well as reduce the cost and complexity of managing a variety of client desktops, laptops, and mobile handheld devices.

Organisations using VDI are able to benefit from centralised desktop management, rapid deployment, lower support costs, standardised deployment, increased security, and other management efficiencies. However, VDI can also bring along several challenges to organisations who do not plan for, and implement, the technology correctly. Many VDI pilot projects fail due to improper design considerations that lead to performance issues. This in turn leads to dissatisfied end users.

Let’s take a look at several VDI best practices and why these are important to consider before, during, and after installation – as well as moving into ‘day 2’ operations.

VDI deployment best practices

When thinking about deploying a VDI infrastructure, there are several best practices that need to be considered to ensure successful implementation. Consider the following:

• Understanding end user requirements
• Designing and sizing VDI network and storage correctly
• Deciding how to provision virtual desktops – persistent vs. non-persistent
• Using a thin client management solution
• Ensuring high availability

Let’s take a look at each of the above considerations one by one and see how and why organisations need to give due diligence to each area in deploying a VDI solution.

Understanding end user requirements

To deploy a successful and performant VDI solution for your organisation, the needs of the end user need to be determined. To begin with, this requires understanding end user applications. Understanding what types of end user applications are utilised is necessary to understand the sizing requirements of the VDI solution that will be deployed.

Clearly, the performance requirements for users who are performing complex 3D graphics rendering will be quite a bit more than end users simply running email and web applications. A successful VDI deployment often depends on whether or not a thorough understanding of the end user environment has been ascertained or not.

Understanding end user requirements also includes the simple practical requirements of users, such as monitor support, profile persistence, USB redirection, audio profiles, printer needs, scanner needs, and two factor authentication.

Considering all of these key areas helps to ensure a successful VDI deployment.

Designing and sizing VDI network and storage correctly

One of the single most important VDI deployment best practices involves designing network and storage correctly. An incorrectly designed network and storage can lead to disastrous consequences to VDI performance and overall end user satisfaction.

The network becomes even more important with VDI deployments, since in VDI, the network is used not only to exchange user/application data between the end user and servers, but also to feed the entire desktop display/experience. Since the architecture of VDI involves centralised virtual machines that are running in the data centre, the VDI desktop display for the end user depends on protocols such as PCoIP, ICA, RDP, or Blast Extreme (VMware) being able to successfully tream data between the end user and the data centre. This places more burden on the underlying network to be able to transmit VDI display data across the wire.

Additionally, organisations need to be able to understand how VDI traffic and user experience differs between LAN and WAN connections. It would be a mistake for VDI POC or test installs to only include testing and POC involving LAN connections. Organisations need to understand fully all aspects of VDI performance when connecting from both high-speed LAN connections, as well as the slower links such as over the WAN.

What about storage? It cannot be stressed enough just how crucial properly designed and sized storage is to a successful VDI deployment. When thinking about traditional workstations, these operate in a distributed fashion. All the compute, memory, and storage performance are contained within the individual workstations. However, in a VDI environment, you are taking all of the compute, memory, and storage (disk IOPs) that would in a traditional workstation environment be distributed across all workstations – and centralising those requirements to the backend VDI environment.

The VDI storage subsystem must be able to handle all the I/O performance requirements of all end user VDI virtual machines. This includes any ‘I/O storms’ that occur. An I/O storm occurs during a number of different events that can overwhelm VDI storage. These events can include boot, login, and logoff events of a large number of VDI end users. When a large number of VDI end users boot up, login, or logoff their VDI desktop images during the same short time span, VDI storage can become saturated and result in performance issues.

Today’s new hybrid and all-flash SAN arrays are generally powerful enough to alleviate many of the issues associated with I/O storms. However, due to the expensive nature of all-flash SANs, this weighs in on the decision making process with deploying VDI. Other software-defined storage, such as vSAN, offers attractive capabilities as relates to VDI due to the ease of scaling up and out, and other architectural advantages for VDI deployments.

Keeping the importance of the network and storage in mind when deploying VDI environments is certainly a best practice needed for success in deployment.

Deciding how to provision virtual desktops – persistent vs. non-persistent

One of the decisions that need to be made is what type of virtual desktop will be deployed via VDI. There are generally two types of virtual desktops that can be utilised – persistent and non-persistent. What are the differences and use cases?

Persistent virtual desktops are more in line with keeping the same philosophy as physical workstations assigned to users. You have one workstation that is assigned to a particular user. That user always gets his/her same virtual desktop each time they login. With non-persistent desktops, admins set up a ‘pool’ of desktops that are created from a ‘gold’ virtual desktop image. When the user logs in, they are assigned to one of the generic virtual desktops in the pool.

Persistent virtual desktops bring much of the familiarity of managing physical infrastructure into the world of VDI. However, it can also add to management overhead and storage space since each user has a specific virtual desktop image that is stored and maintained. The advantage is their data is able to persist and can be managed in the traditional sense.

Non-persistent virtual desktops are more efficient from a storage and management perspective since there is only one ‘gold’ image to maintain and provisioned virtual desktops can be recycled when a user logs off. Non-persistent environments add the complexity of managing user profiles and user data in a less traditional way. Generally, by utilising folder redirection, or other products such as VMware User Environment Manager, these challenges can be overcome with non-persistent implementations.

Organisations must assess the needs of end users and decide which type of provisioning will work best for their particular end users and use cases.

Using a thin client management solution

An important aspect to consider when implementing a VDI solution is managing thin clients in a VDI deployment. Even though physical workstations are replaced by virtual desktops running on a VDI platform, end users still need a way to access those virtual desktops. Thin clients are very lightweight computers that can be configured with much less internal hardware, stripped down OS, and are generally much cheaper than physical workstations. Thin clients enable end users the ability to connect to the backend virtual desktop infrastructure.

Deploying all new thin clients can represent a tremendous investment as well as management overhead for organisations moving to VDI. However, by utilising client management software such as Praim ThinMan, as well as software that can allow turning a PC into a thin client, such as Praim ThinOX4PC, you can offset both challenges.

Make VDI environments highly available

It is crucial for organisations to understand the importance of making a VDI solution highly available. Generally speaking, there are many aspects of today’s modern hypervisors that make them resilient and highly available, such as VMware HA and so on. In traditional client/server infrastructure, if an end user desktop is broken, all other end users are still up and running. In contrast, by utilising a VDI solution, all end user desktops are going to rely on the availability of the backend VDI solution. With this being said, making sure to build out enough hosts in the VDI cluster, having redundant data paths to storage and network connections and redundant power, will help to alleviate concerns around availability.

A well designed and architected hypervisor and storage solution will take care of any concerns that may come about when considering the move to a native VDI solution for end user desktops.

Concluding thoughts

VDI solutions offer tremendous benefits to organisations in terms of manageability, performance, security, and other benefits. However, there are key deployment best practices that need to be considered when looking to move to a VDI solution. This includes understanding end user requirements, designing and sizing VDI network and storage correctly, deciding how to provision user desktops, making use of a thin client management solution, and ensuring high availability.

By proper planning and testing with a well designed POC, organisations can expect to achieve a successful, effective, and problem-free VDI deployments.

Keumars Afifi-Sabet

Keumars Afifi-Sabet

Keumars Afifi-Sabet

Clare Hopping

Dale Walker

If anyone was in any doubt that multi-cloud was heading for the mainstream, recent research by 451 will have quashed it. Of the 800 businesses across the globe that responded to the latest Voice of the Enterprise: Cloud, Hosting and Managed Services, Budgets and Outlook survey, 69% said they planned to adopt a multi-cloud strategy by 2019. What’s more, the cloud computing-as-a-service market is expected to double to $53.3 billion by 2021, according to 451’s Market Monitor. So it’s no surprise that the number of vendors and technologies in the space are growing rapidly.

The good news for businesses is that this presents the chance to mix and match cloud services to maximise effectiveness, efficiency and costs. However, this may seem like a new and complex marketplace, which means it can be a tough challenge navigating your way through it. And therein lies a major opportunity for resellers: to help companies make sense of multi-cloud and secure the best solution for their needs. The question is whether resellers themselves are up for the challenge.

As a reseller, it’s vital to offer the best possible service to the end user. From a multi-cloud perspective, that means delivering vendor diversity to help companies reduce risk, save costs and maximise performance.

The right mix of suppliers, for example, can ensure that critical systems are running 100% of the time and reduce the risk of a business being hit by either a breakdown in a vendor relationship or a company going under.

Furthermore, while the hyperscalers do have similar base service offerings, they have also developed unique capabilities and services that solve for very specific problems. Plus despite these vendors taking a big piece of the multi-cloud pie, there are a growing number of rising stars now adding to the mix. This makes it critical for end users to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each player and the most appropriate applications.

Broadening the spread of vendors also makes good commercial sense as it will help to increase competition in the marketplace, driving down prices while pushing up quality and choice.

Resellers can help businesses to be vendor diverse in several key ways:

Providing key knowledge and being authoritative

This means staying up to date with accreditations, plus taking advantage of training courses and education sessions.

Being neutral

Give clients what they need, not what you want to sell them. This demands being vendor agnostic, understanding the client requirements, working with relevant partners and being open about the pros and cons.

Understanding the market

Dedicate time and effort to getting to know the commercial landscape thoroughly, so you can deliver the optimum vendor mix.

Offering a single point of contact

Simplify and personalise the client relationship by designating a single member of the team to oversee everything from billing to vendor management, who can also translate any industry jargon into plain English.

Simplify the process

Work with the right partners and utilise best-of-breed tools to make the discovery, planning, sourcing, and execution involved with implementing cloud strategies simple.

Multi-cloud presents resellers with a clear opportunity to differentiate themselves in a crowded channel marketplace if they are prepared to adjust their approach where necessary, as outlined above, and build key partner relationships. Legacy resellers continue to struggle, partly because of the pace of change, but also from continued demand from management and investors to chase perpetual licensing and infrastructure business. But to make the most of the multi-cloud future, it’s critical for resellers to be transparent and neutral and not bow to the pressure to optimise margins and push certain suppliers or partners.

It will also be important to manage partnerships carefully and effectively with multiple cloud service providers, which will be a big challenge. This is where a partner with existing cross-vendor relationships and products that run across multiple cloud offerings can prove invaluable. 

Finally, resellers should strongly consider specialisation by searching out a key multi-cloud niche vertical market to make their own. Rather than simply claiming to be a “cloud specialist” like the majority of other resellers, make it easy for the end client to differentiate you from the crowd that offer “vanilla” services which are simply resold or provided wholesale. If you have a vertical focus, look at building out a proposition specific to that market. This also helps many vendors, such as AWS, which has a strong focus on key verticals, particularly Life Sciences and more recently Finance.

Once you’ve identified your niche, compile strong relevant case studies to show your expertise and put together a marketing strategy, incorporating your vendors and partners where you can to strengthen your offer and add value to your relationship.

Making the most of multi-cloud will not be without its challenges to resellers, but if you can meet the growing demands of business for vendor diversity and find the right niche, the long-term rewards will be well worth the effort.

Read more: How resellers can make a difference in enabling organisations' cloud transformations

This year will see a marked increase in competition for public cloud dollars – and not just from incumbents like Amazon and Google. As demand for the cloud grows, big companies from China are making significant moves to expand their global reach – with Alibaba in particular moving aggressively into Europe and the United States.

The public cloud spend of a typical Fortune 500 can quickly escalate to eight or nine digits on an annual basis. Snap alone is paying hundreds of millions of dollars a year on Google Cloud.

Proprietary services and software that are part of a public cloud’s PaaS offering create significant lock-in – and credible, compatible alternatives often don’t exist

Winning one of these big customers means big money and the competition for marquee contracts will just be heating up this year. And with so much competition, there is going to be opportunities for huge savings – for companies of all sizes.

While the biggest winners will be those enterprises that have invested heavily in the cloud, IT organizations need to make sure that they implement the right cloud infrastructure and technologies to make the most of lowering costs.

One key solution is multi-cloud.

Vendor lock-in will be cloud issue #1 for the enterprise

No decision maker worth their salt is going to want to embrace a single cloud platform to the exclusion of all others. While some organizations might lock in a really good contract, it won’t be with any of the big 3 unless they cut prices dramatically. But these forced price reductions will only further the cycle of cost cutting and drive enterprises to keep their options open.

As a result, the level of anxiety for decision makers at big organizations around vendor lock-in will continue to rise – already vendor lock-in has replaced security as the #1 cloud concern.

While most organizations will remain on a single cloud this year, they will be actively seeking out options to avoid being trapped on that cloud. More and more enterprises will be moving away from expensive and limiting proprietary cloud storage technologies developed by Amazon, Google and Microsoft and embracing open source software solutions. As a result, it will be the beginning of a bad set of years for the highest price, stickiest services that are being offered by cloud service providers.

What’s at risk for enterprises considering proprietary solutions? Take Snap – a  company that uses App Engine – a Google platform. App Engine is 10x more expensive for Snap than other solutions but they are stuck on the platform because to move away from it would mean rebuilding. This would require a huge investment in engineering resources and the potential of mass instability of their platform – which could drive away users. You’ll see fewer and fewer enterprises falling into that trap in the future which is why we are seeing so much interest in multi-cloud strategies. Conversely, it will be a good year for tools that make it easier for enterprises to avoid vendor lock in – like Kubernetes and Docker.

The best path forward to multi-cloud

Most large enterprises have instituted mandates for a multi-cloud strategy. SMBs would do well to plan for one, even if it will not be a practical reality in the near term. There is a non-trivial cost to building for multi-cloud deployments, because they require a layer of abstraction between a company's IT footprint and the underlying cloud vendor's APIs. However, not building from the start for multi-cloud makes the eventual transition increasingly difficult, as each additional vendor-specific hook is utilized directly by deployed services. The good news is that the necessary layer of abstraction is rapidly evolving via open source and commercially-supported offerings, including Kubernetes, Docker, DC/OS, and Cloud Foundry.

Cloud price wars will heat up this year – it will be the beginning of a bad set of years for the highest price, stickiest services that are being offered by cloud service providers

Implementing a multi-cloud strategy requires first and foremost that IT leaders select cloud-neutral technologies. Proprietary services and software that are part of a public cloud's PaaS offering create significant lock-in. Credible, compatible alternatives often don't exist, and worse, migration paths are incomplete and poorly supported; it's not in a cloud vendor's interests to provide an easy off ramp. For two arresting examples, look no further than Dropbox's struggles to replace their usage of AWS S3 or the aforementioned Snap and their ongoing battle with Google App Engine's explosive cost structure.

Cloud price wars will heat up this year. Putting all of an enterprise's eggs into a single cloud vendor's basket invites risks resulting from the vendor's potential systemic security and/or operational shortcomings. A multi-cloud strategy will give enterprises the flexibility to migrate between cloud vendors – and take advantage of falling prices.