The benefits and risks of Cloud computing have been mentioned quite a lot lately by industry heavy weights, IT professionals and myself. The aim of Cloud computing is to simplify IT delivery, management and reduce costs.

If the majority of your applications become cloud born then do you really need a dual core or quad core workstation sitting on your desk at work? For all the on paper savings virtualization promises to yield, it is still quite expensive to implement a virtual environment properly. That money may be made back within three to five years but many organisations simply cannot get the capital, especially in today’s economic climate.

Open source software is starting to be accepted by a small part of the IT industry, but Microsoft does not need to worry about losing any market share. Cloud computing and Saas services have been fairly specialised up until now, serving CRM applications mainly. That is changing very fast though.

So how can organisations adopt cloud computing, virtual infrastructure and server virtualization without robbing the proverbial Fort Knox? I have used Linux on and off when I needed to, but prefer my Windows workstation mostly. It is also great to be able to get open source software and tools, they are usually pretty good. Currently Microsoft Office is the easiest office product to use, so I have difficulty changing to any open source offerings.

But I have only been talking about the traditional locally installed applications so far.

If you now take all those applications and put them in the Cloud or use cloud technology to develop and host a private cloud does it matter what operating system you use. Ideally it shouldn’t. If you need to write a browser plugin or client application it should be just as easy to do in Linux or Windows.

Applications are going to become more portable and dynamic so that they can handle connections and offload work to other replicas.

IBM, Virtual Bridges and Canonical have released a Linux virtual desktop interface (VDI) system called Virtual Enterprise Remote Desktop Environment (VERDE). VERDE uses a Ubuntu base to host virtual desktops. Citing the usual cost savings that can be made from moving away from Microsoft and using Virtualization.

Maybe this could work for organisations that want to embrace the Cloud and cut costs. Users would use either in built open source office and productivity software or preferably Saas to do all their work. Instead of using Microsoft Office use Google Docs or Zoho Office.

Unfortunately I don’t think Linux VDI’s could break down the doors of enterprise businesses and governments without being coupled with either an Internet based cloud or private cloud serving the applications. Even at $49 USD per user the VERDE system will need help from Cloud and Virtualization champions to move forward.