Desktop Management Stratgies

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Thursday, September 06, 2007

Advantages of deploying DM
Increased efficiency and productivity is one of the main advantages. With a more organized approach to managing desktops, the systems become more reliable, and when there is a problem, tech support is much faster. For the staff working on these systems, this means a huge reduction in downtime and therefore increased productivity and efficiency.

Another benefit of having DM in place is that IT managers can spare a lot more time from routine tasks for more meaningful activities such as planning IT strategies. IT departments move through the PC lifecycle of purchasing, deploying, maintaining, upgrading, and retiring systems. However, it's the middle of the cycle-deploying, maintaining, and upgrading-where IT managers spend most of their time. With DM in place, this time can come down drastically; freeing the IT staff for contemplating and implementing more strategic IT tools for the organization.

There is also a two-fold reduction in costs with DM-in support and administration. With DM, the rising cost of technical support can be contained by efficient management of resources. Also, the cost of rolling out new software, upgrading existing software, capacity planning and asset tracking, which are mostly administrative tasks, can be brought down. Enterprises with many legacy systems, diverse hardware or remote users may have a hard time keeping track of their desktops, and DM can help target specific computers based on inventory data.

There are studies to support DM's RoI. Gartner's 'Desktop TCO Update, 2003' says that total cost of ownership for an unmanaged Windows XP desktop for three years is $5,309. If the same desktop is managed-which is defined by Gartner as implementing a slew of best practices combined with tools, processes and policies, in other words, DM-it comes down to $3,335.

Having a DM policy also leads to a more secure network infrastructure. When working in a networked environment, it is vital for a system administrator to see what is running on machines. From a security standpoint, this is of primary importance. Today's threats can cripple the integrity and credibility of a company, so it is important that the administrator quickly gets warnings about unusual activity, as well as be able to update all machines on the network with new security protection efficiently and effectively. This is one of the biggest drivers of DM. With better patch and firewall management and monitoring of software installs and updates, vulnerabilities and security breaches come to light much quicker and can be thwarted quite easily and in time too. Access control also becomes a key issue.

Last but not the least comes the issue of compliance. With global compliance in processes becoming critical for enterprises in various verticals, DM has become a really handy tool.

The path to Desktop Management
The path to DM is not as easy as one would hope. There are many challenges to meet on the way. The least of these is dealing with increasing number of users in a growing enterprise. These users operate in a distributed environment in various locations, and each has individual requirements from the desktop. Managing the increasing and disparate needs can be an uphill task.

Then, there is the challenge of a rapidly changing technology to deal with. To begin with, this effects the very definition of the desktop, because increasingly, employees are using quite diverse devices such as desktops, laptops, PDAs, and smart phones. This makes DM that much more challenging. Another change that DM has to contend with is the increasing instances of malicious attacks. Connected desktops (and other user end-points) expose the various applications and repositories of information in the enterprise to these attacks and managing newer and more potent malware is a constant challenge.

Desktop management is increasingly becoming a must-implement strategy in organizations that rely on desktops and similar devices. It's not so much about the advantages of deploying it as it is about the dangers of not doing so. As spam and virus attacks reach alarming levels, an enterprise is vulnerable all the time. And unless the CIO knows exactly what each desktop is up to, he is asking for trouble. Even if we remove security from the picture, the sheer scale of hardware and software deployments in a large enterprise can be quite unmanageable, and keeping each of them up to date in order to ultimately keep the efficiency levels of the employees high is a critical task. Ultimately, it is about the CIO taking proactive measures and making his own job more do-able.

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