He says VDI is costly but can eventually pay for itself. The school used a private grant to upgrade its /Enterasys network in preparation of deploying VDI and then to fund the software itself. While he wouldn't say the cost, he says that at the end of eight years the school will spend half what it would have had it not transitioned to VDI with the break-even point coming sometime in the fourth year.

He has several recommendations. Phase in the deployments with the simplest ones first, Lee says, because there is a learning curve.

Be wary of creating too many virtual desktop gold images because they create more work. The more images there are, the more updates have to be applied. He recommends figuring out how to create a common-denominator base image that fits the largest number of end users. To keep down the number of images, he deems it unsuitable to use VDI everywhere.

Scripps Networks - the company behind the Food Network, the Cooking Channel and the Travel Channel - relies on VDI for its developer community, says Selene Tolbert, project manager for development operations at the company's Knoxville, Tenn., headquarters.

The company uses collaboration extensively to support its agile software development process and its developers around the world. If developers tap into a virtual desktop remotely and it goes bad, they call up a new one if the old one can't be fixed; the user continues working.