enterprises a way to scale up or down without a major forklift. HCI came into prominence as a way to save money by emulating cloud infrastructure in private and commercial companies. Compression and deduplication are used in storage equipment SO that data can be stored using less disk space. Compression uses complex algorithms to shrink the size of data. See Chapter 1 for more about compression. Deduplication removes redundant data from stored and transmitted files. Additionally, it streamlines protocols that require acknowledgments and negative acknowledgments after each stream of data transmitted. The Impact of Virtualized Hardware Failure Because multiple software applications run on each physical server, virtualization increases each physical server's criticality. If one server fails, multiple applications and business processes are disrupted. Moreover, server virtualization results in the centralization of more applications, such as collaboration, video and audio conferencing, and accounts payable and accounts receivable software being centralized within data centers rather than located in remote departments. Thus, in multi-site organizations, failures affect multiple sites and departments. Redundancy is a key consideration in organizations where computing is critical for operations. Hot standby is one option for redundancy. Hot standby refers to the capability of one piece of equipment to automatically take over the function of a failed unit, without human intervention. One way to achieve this is to provide alternate paths if one switch fails. Another option is to use replication software, which is used in virtualized servers to back up all files to a hot standby location that can handle all computing if the main site crashes. www.TechnicalPDF.com Managing Users' Computers via Virtual Desktops Desktop virtualization, also called Virtual Desktop Integration (VDI), refers to the phenomenon of users' applications and desktop images being held in central servers in data centers or in the cloud. Staff access the