Desktop virtualization

This is the decoupling of a users physical machine from the desktop and software he or she uses to work.

• Most desktop virtualization products emulate the PC hardware environment of the client and run a virtual machine alongside the existing operating system located on the local machine or delivered to a thin client from a data center server.
• Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is a server-centric computing model that borrows from the traditional thin-client model but is designed to give system administrators and end-users the best of both worlds: the ability to host and centrally manage desktop virtual machines in the data center while giving end users a full PC desktop experience.
• The user experience is intended to be identical to that of a standard PC, but from a thin client device or similar, from the same office or remotely.

Many commercial solutions also add the ability to switch some incoming client sessions (using connection broker software) towards traditional shared desktop systems such as Microsoft's Terminal Services or Citrix's application servers, blade servers or even to individual unused physical desktop computers.