This article is part of the December 2011 issue of The realities of virtualised data centres

While many organisations adopt desktop virtualisation to consolidate IT systems, the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, DG Joint Research Centre (JRC IPTS), European Commission used it to run customised, high-performance virtual machines (VMs). Its innovative approach to desktop virtualisation helped the centre achieve infrastructure flexibility, user satisfaction and energy savings. This approach prompted a panel of expert judges to select JRC IPTS as the winner of the Best Desktop Virtualisation Project category at VMworld Europe 2011. JRC IPTS supports the development of European Union policies and works as an intermediary between the socioeconomic aspects of an issue and the science and technology involved. Its researchers develop and use economic models to support the policy-making process. These models are theoretical representations of economic processes that can be tuned to respond to particular hypotheses through the use of variables, parameters and factual data from various sources. But in computing terms, “these models are encoded ... Access >>>