Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is a popular topic of conversation today among IT departments for just about every business that uses a hybrid or remote workforce. The global pandemic has accelerated its adoption and cemented the use of remote work in the modern workplace. Remote work is another great way to attract the best talent to your organization, and it not only maximizes the spend on existing IT infrastructure, but it also provides a better work/life balance to employees.
While VDI can be based either on-prem or within the cloud, VDI as a service moves the bulk of the responsibility and workload off burdened IT staff to a third-party partner to implement, manage, and upgrade. For a nominal monthly management fee, organizations can benefit from the expertise and infrastructure provided by VDI industry leaders whose core business is to help secure and manage virtual desktop systems.
Before embarking on the VDI journey, businesses may want to carefully consider these three things:
Consideration One: Business Goals and Objectives
Although VDI is a powerful technology, different features and aspects of the solution are geared to unique business challenges. Before selecting a partner, companies should step back and consider their overall business goals and objectives, and then, specifically what they want to accomplish with VDI as a service.
For example, one company may want to improve the efficiency of its remote employees through better communication and more reliable accessibility to systems and data, while another is primarily concerned about securing sensitive data and regulatory compliance. A third organization may have seasonal peaks and demand, requiring it to scale up and down its workforce quickly and efficiently.
Understanding overall goals will help a business ultimately select not only the best partner but also the features that are most desired for its specific VDI system.
Consideration Two: Obtaining Company Buy-In
Once the IT department has determined that VDI as a service is the best course of action, the team may need to secure buy-in from top management as well as employees who will be using the system.
If the management team or other departments believe that part of IT’s responsibilities should be to build or manage an on-prem VDI system, it can be helpful to point out some of the challenges and hidden costs that may not be apparent at first glance.
First, most IT departments are already short-staffed and overburdened with other mission-critical priorities. Building or managing an internal VDI system can require significant upfront investment as well as specialized expertise.
Second, if an internal data system already exists, which one always does unless you are a startup beginning from scratch, deploying VDI on top of existing systems can stress the center in terms of processing power, storage, memory, and complexity. Furthermore, shortages in the global compute supply chain have created long lines and waits for equipment which has driven up cost and the leads time to receive that critical equipment. And, finally, risk can increase once computing is centralized, requiring a business to become increasingly dependent on the internal infrastructure for availability as well as invest in safeguards against cybercrime and attacks.
By moving to a VDI as a service model, an organization can mitigate or even eliminate many of these issues while still reaping the benefits of a virtual desktop system. Key advantages include centralized and simplified management and upgrades, tighter security, increased employee productivity and flexibility, and lower cost of ownership.
In addition, relying on a third-party expert helps ensure higher availability to company systems and data as the external partner must prioritize availability for all customers. Platform redundancy is provided, giving a company guaranteed uptime and protection against disasters or unanticipated interruptions.
Using an outside partner frees up internal resources to focus on mission-critical problems and issues and eases pressure to hire and retain IT professionals in a tight labor market. Finally, this model allows businesses to scale up or down as needed, paying for only what they need without large outlays of capital.
Consideration Three: Choosing the Right Partner
Now that management, IT, and employees are fully on board with the choice of VDI environment, it’s time to select the right VDI partner. Here are some tips to do just that:
- Synergistic Goals: Return to overall business objectives and goals and seek a partner who has a similar culture and vision.
- Applicable Experience: Many VDI solution providers may specialize in particular industry verticals. Find one that has experience with businesses that are similar to your company and market.
- Flexible Offerings: Features and offerings are important. Consider the highest priorities for the organization and be sure that the VDI partner can deliver on things like storage requirements, security systems, and technical support. Ideally, a package can be tailored to meet specific company needs.
- User Perspective: Businesses that are interested in having employees have the same desktop and access regardless of device or location will want to ensure that persistent desktops, which require more storage, are offered. In those situations where several people may share the same workstation, non-persistent desktops may be more secure and cost-effective.
- Ease of Deployment: Explore the steps involved in the implementation process and how quickly virtual desktops can be deployed. One advantage of using a VDI solution provider is to be able to scale up and down rapidly. Commissioning and decommissioning desktops or devices should be secure and seamless for the organization, and the customer should have the ability to deploy desktops on their own.
- Customized Payment Plans: Different companies have different needs. Be sure the VDI solution provider is willing to entertain pay-as-you-go models, bring-your-own-device options, discounts for annual payment and commitments, or flexibility depending on selected features.
- Proven Success: Understand how the VDI partner has addressed similar needs and problems for other companies. Ideally, talk with several references about their initial pain points, successful results, how challenges were handled, and their overall experiences.
- Data Center Locations: Latency can be an issue with outside VDI solution providers. Depending on where employees, customers, or other stakeholders are located, it may be important to understand where data centers are geographically located and whether the closest ones will be used. This is especially important for global access.
Conclusion
Evolve IP partners with IT professionals to make the future of work better by seamlessly integrating their essential productivity tools into a single, secure solution, fine-tuned for the hybrid workforce. For more information on our VDI solution and other Work Anywhere™ enterprise technologies, contact us today.
