Virtualization has been a boon for multiuser systems, letting them run the Windows operating system and applications on servers. Each user’s state is saved as a virtual desktop that can be remotely accessed from PCs, laptops, netbooks, tablets, smartphones and even dumb “thin clients” (terminals costing as little as $200). The downside is that remote users of server-hosted virtualization need to be online to take advantage of the virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)—a show-stopper for highly mobile workers. That limitation has provided the motivation for a new paradigm called client-hosted virtualization, which runs on laptop computers.
Further Reading
