The project began in late spring with configuring the back end, building and testing sample desktop environments, and consulting with interested departments about their software needs. Part of what delayed the project is we are upgrading the central storage. This is a huge cultural shift for many users, so we needed to make sure there would be buy-in from key administrators before proceeding further. I have been using it effectively from my Mac for browser testing of apps and for testing Outlook-Gmail connectivity. It is great. We are talking to some faculty members about using a virtual desktop to run statistical software, which we believe will get going after the usual beginning of the semester activities settle down.

What technologies did you wind up going with and why?

Back end -- , NetApp for file storage, Active Directory for access control. On the Macs, we use the VMware View client. As I mentioned earlier, when appropriately configured, this combination works. We also have tremendous expertise in all of these technologies in our organization.

What end user devices are being supported via VDI?

Macs, PCs and tablets, thin clients.