Double-Take Launches Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Solution in EMEA

Double-Take Software, Inc. announced the EMEA launch of Double-Take Flex, a new virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) product set aimed at organisations that want to centralise the management and deployment of desktop environments.

Double-Take Flex provides a way of delivering virtual desktops to users and can provision hundreds of machines from one master image.

Double-Take Flex uses a centrally stored desktop image, which is then streamed across and booted locally on the user’s desktop machine. Processing is carried out on the user’s machine, while all files are saved centrally. This approach reduces the time taken around managing desktop PCs substantially, while the personalisation elements found on traditional PCs can still be applied, maintaining the user experience.

“We have seen a huge interest across our customers and partners in the potential of centralised or virtual desktops. Reducing the number of images that have to be supported can provide strong cost savings for IT and help deliver new applications and desktop environments to users faster,” commented Ian Masters, UK sales director at Double-Take Software. “Using Double-Take Flex allows IT to manage desktop images and resources in one place and enforce a central storage policy, while the processing for each machine is carried out locally on a user’s machine. This approach makes central desktop delivery far easier and requires little change to the existing infrastructure. It offers a different approach to other VDI and desktop virtualisation strategies, which are more expensive and require extensive infrastructure upgrades to enable the functionality.”

Additionally, organisations can benefit from increased data security: instead of having information distributed across each physical PC, local hard drives can be removed if there is no requirement to save files locally. Migration from one operating system to another, for example moving from XP or Vista to Windows 7, is also made simpler as organisations only have to roll out new images centrally, rather than updating each desktop individually.

“The ability to use standard desktop machines without hard drives installed can also help prolong the life of existing hardware, which represents another opportunity for cost savings,” continued Masters. “Failing hard drives are one of the biggest reasons why desktops are thrown away; this alternative approach makes them useful resources for longer.”

The Double-Take Flex solution is made up of a Management Server console, a Storage Server console and the Double-Take Flex clients. Double-Take Flex is priced at £99 per desktop client session.