Before you implement a virtual desktop interface (VDI) for your organization, you’ll want to explore the VDI benefits that you can expect to ensure you’ll be reaping a solid return on your investment.
VDI has been growing in popularity in recent years, especially during the global pandemic when many organizations quickly pivoted to a remote workforce. VDI essentially allows a company to centralize its core business applications, including operating systems, databases, software, and web applications, while providing employees and stakeholders scalable and secure access to these critical systems through virtual interfaces. Users could connect to these desktop images through fat desktops or thin clients from just about anywhere.
While some organizations have chosen to run an internal data center to manage a VDI, others have opted to use a third-party hosted VDI solution, which is housed in the cloud and managed by a trusted, experienced partner. Following are the top five VDI benefits of using a hosted VDI solution:
With the myriad of technological solutions available today, each promising a panacea of benefits, your IT staff is most likely stretched to its limits when it comes to evaluating and selecting a VDI solution. By using a hosted VDI solution, you’ll be able to take a large chunk of work off the IT department’s plate. A VDI provider will not only manage the implementation of a VDI platform, but will be responsible for all platform updates, security patches and upgrades, and desktop performance troubleshooting. Depending on how you choose to work with your VDI partner, you may contract ongoing support services with them as well, further reducing the IT burden by allowing them to work with your end-users as needed.
This will allow your IT department to focus on mission-critical priorities, which are often more valuable, interesting, and fulfilling from a professional standpoint. Many of the tasks associated with maintaining an internal data center can be boring and mundane, which can quickly affect your IT team’s morale and culture. Providing challenging, fulfilling work may help you retain experienced, valuable IT employees.
If your organization experiences some variability in your workforce, setting up a hosted VDI can vastly simplify scaling operations either up or down.
If peak seasons or sudden spikes in demand require that you add contractors or temporary employees to your workforce, it is easy to get them up and running as well as trained on your VDI network. VDI allows companies to easily grant only necessary access and privileges without making their entire system vulnerable to a fluctuating workforce. When work is completed, access and privileges are easily revoked.
In addition, VDI is a great fit for organizations who embrace a bring your own device (BYOD) policy. BYOD has become an increasingly popular practice in the last few years and has surged in utilization since a large percentage of the global workforce started working remotely as a response to COVID-19. VDI allows employees to securely leverage their own personal devices, such as laptops, cell phone, or tablet, while companies can continue to maintain the governance of the systems employees access.
This provides your organization with an unparalleled level of agility. In today’s competitive and fast-moving marketplace, those companies who see opportunities and seize them the fastest will experience greater success and profitability.
While operating your own internal data center can be expensive, working with a hosted VDI partner is frequently a cost-effective solution. Storage, staffing, and upkeep costs can be high if an organization chooses to operate its own data center. However, when a VDI resides in the cloud, it becomes easier to only pay for what you use.
Most hosted VDI partners operate as a desktop-as-a-service provider, offering a full suite of services for a per user, per month, subscription fee. This allows your business to only pay for the users currently on the platform, scaling up and down as needed, while having access to a team of experts that can keep your system up-to-date and secure without ongoing investment from your business.
If you’re switching from an internal data center to a hosted VDI, you may also significantly reduce your energy bills as internal servers can consume a large amount of energy. Globally, data centers were estimated to use between 196 terawatt hours (TWh) (Masanet et al, 2020) and 400 TWh (Hintemann, 2020) in 2020. This would mean data centers consume between 1-2% of global electricity demand. By moving to cloud computing, your organization will likely reduce carbon emission footprint significantly.
It’s clear that the nature of our workforce has changed in the last 2 years. More and more employers and employees are seeking a balance between professional and personal lives. Being able to work where and when they desire is extremely attractive to today’s workforce. At the same time, many industries are experiencing a labor shortage, struggling to find qualified workers to help them achieve their company’s mission.
By moving to a hosted VDI solution, organizations can expand their search radius and find those employees, wherever they are located, to join their teams. Adding new employees or contract workers is fast and easy with a VDI platform, while offering access to those privileges and areas of your business systems that will allow them to work effectively and efficiently without compromising governance or security.
Since new installations, management of viruses and other security issues, upgrades and patches are all done by your VDI partner in a central location, your employees will not experience as many disruptions. Gone are the days when IT must physically move or work on individual machines to solve problems; many of these activities can be completed in the background, unknown to end users at all.
As a result, team members will typically be able to continue accessing their system whenever and wherever they need it to maintain and improve their productivity levels on a daily basis.
In addition, you’ll be less likely to experience productivity disruptions due to security issues. Hosted VDI allows state-of-the-art protection, multi-factor authentication, and proven recovery protocols to keep your company protected from breaches and cybercrime and your employees productive.
Hosted VDI is a proven solution for today’s modern workplace, supporting remote employees and allowing flexibility and scalability where it is needed most. Appreciating these five VDI benefits for your business can help you make an informed decision about next steps. To learn more about how hosted VDI can help your company maintain governance and security, contact Evolve IP today for a free consultation.