Throughout the 30-day experiment, Weeks followed his typical day-to-day work schedule. He is constantly on the go and needs a laptop with the capabilities and applications to support his demanding workflow. Most days he was onsite at customer facilities architecting and implementing data center solutions, delivering multiple presentations and testing new technology.

The biggest challenge he faced was the ability to connect to a network while out in the field. Without access to his virtual desktop Weeks was rendered unproductive. As expected, he ran into firewall issues and was not able to make VPN connections without some specific reconfigurations. He did try unsuccessfully to tether his Blackberry to use as a modem, however there is support for other broadband cellular networking options. Weeks did not have access to these other options, but looks forward to testing them and evaluating performance on a broadband connection.

Weeks also encountered complications when using certain applications like GoToMeeting and Microsoft PowerPoint through his VPN. Since he frequently delivers customer presentations in person and remotely, the ability to boot up his laptop and immediately start these applications was a must. Because the X90 runs Windows XP embedded on the system, Weeks discovered while troubleshooting that he could install these applications directly on the thin client to give him the start-up time he needed.

As the technology matures, Weeks would like to see the addition of the predefined connection options that remote desktop protocol offers, such as the ability to modify screen resolution or color depth. These options are handy during slow connections and would provide greater flexibility and ease of use for the end user.

Weeks has reverted back to his Lenovo T500, but has permanently altered his work patterns. He will continue to test and blog about mobile VDI among other things at http://virtuallyalex.blogspot.com

Source: http://www.dabcc.com/article.aspx?id=11298