OS Image Management

The Myth of the Single Gold Image

Administrators trying to implement VDI for users who need custom desktops quickly realize that the promise of single image Operating System (OS) management hasn't been realized.

  • Cloned image approaches lose user settings, user-installed applications, and data whenever the base image changes.
  • Applications that cannot be virtualized get embedded into the gold image, resulting in gold image bloat or the proliferation of many different gold images.
  • Classic PC management tools require agents on every desktop to automate the installation of Microsoft Windows hot fixes and patches. 10-15% of these updates routinely fail, resulting in costly and time-consuming service escalations.
Simplify OS image management and patching
Ron Oglesby, VMware vExpert and Citrix CTP, compares traditional approaches with new desktop layering technology, and shows how to make single image management, versioning, patching, and updating incredibly fast, easy, and cost-effective.
 

Streamline and error-proof operating system provisioning and patching for VDI

By offering true single image management for VDI, Unidesk enables you to:

  • Accelerate desktop provisioning. Unidesk imports your existing Windows XP or Windows 7 gold image, so you can immediately begin provisioning custom, storage-efficient virtual desktops.
  • Eliminate gold image sprawl.  Unidesk desktop layering technology lets you separate all of your applications, even antivirus and other previously hard-to-virtualize apps, from your gold image, so you can use a single, pristine OS layer as the basis for all virtual desktops.
  • Simplify the management experience.  You don't need a separate management console just to patch and update your OS. Unidesk virtualizes and manages the entire desktop - user, applications, and operating system - so you can create and deliver custom virtual desktops with ease. Patch the OS layer once, and all desktops based on that OS layer will be updated. Because Unidesk uses storage virtualization to dynamically merge the new OS layer into each desktop, patch failures become a thing of the past.
  • Reduce storage.  Unidesk shares a single instance of the OS layer across many virtual desktops to eliminate duplicate copies of Windows, dramatically reducing the VDI storage footprint.
  • Improve change control and audits.  With Unidesk, you can create and label multiple versions of your OS layers, audit when they were deployed to which desktops, and rollback the OS on all or a subset of desktops to an earlier version if you deploy a patch that is problematic.