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Many Enterprise-level implementations of this technology store the resulting “virtualized” desktop on a remote central server, instead of on the local storage of a remote client; thus, when users work from their local machine, all of the programs, applications, processes, and data used are kept and run centrally.

This allows users to run operating system and execute applications from a smartphone or thin client which exceed the user hardware’s ability to run.

Desktop virtualization (sometimes called client virtualization), as a concept, separates a personal computer desktop environment from a physical machine using the client–server model of computing.

Virtualization Best Practices

Some virtualization platforms allow the user to simultaneously run multiple virtual machines on local hardware, such as a laptop, using hypervisor technology. Virtual machine images are created and maintained on a central server, and changes to the desktop VMs are propagated to all user machines through the network, thus combining both the advantages of portability afforded by local hypervisor execution and of central image management.

This approach requires more capable user hardware capable of running the local VM images, such as a personal computer or notebook computer, and thus is not as portable as the pure client-server model.

Technical Definition

Desktop virtualization involves encapsulating and delivering either access to an entire information system environment or the environment itself to a remote client device. The client device may use an entirely different hardware architecture from that used by the projected desktop environment, and may also be based upon an entirely different operating system.

The desktop virtualization model allows the use of virtual machines to let multiple network subscribers maintain individualized desktops on a single, centrally located computer or server. The central machine may operate at a residence, business, or data center.

Users may be geographically scattered, but all may be connected to the central machine by a local area network, a wide area network, or the public Internet.