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The market for cloud-based virtual display interfaces (VDI) is expected to grow in 2020, due in part to the large-scale shift to remote working. Companies need safe and effective solutions to manage their now-remote workforce. On their end, employees will need IT support that is comparable to what they had when everyone was in the office. On the IT side, technicians and support specialists need ways to deploy programs and applications to machines virtually, without the need for physically going to someone’s home office.
The new normal of office workers predominantly working from home has forced IT departments to reassess how dispersed employees can still access key documents and programs. Should employees use their own devices? Will they simply take their work laptops home with them? If so, are those devices optimally configured for the remote environment?
In this rarefied environment, VDI solutions are a way to meet everyone’s needs. As work decentralizes away from the office, IT departments need technology solutions optimized for distributed work. VDI is one such solution, thanks to its ability to standardize applications and programs within a central location to push to workers on demand.
VDI Centralization Is IT’s Secret Weapon
At its core, VDI is a way to create a network of computers where all applications, programs and documents are stored in a central location or server. The nature of VDI allows IT to centralize computing power in one place, which is ideal for the decentralized nature of today’s workforce, with everyone working remotely. Centralizing IT makes the remote machines easier to manage and add or remove programs and applications as needs change.
By storing applications centrally, they only need to be installed once; updates and logins can be pushed to employees and virtual machines as needed. Having programs and applications stored centrally has many advantages over installing applications in local storage. Having data centralized means that access to new and existing programs can be pushed to employees who need it on-demand. Also, because nothing is stored locally, nothing is ever lost. This means organizations can have a smooth transition as people leave the organization or employees go on to work on other teams or projects, adding to business continuity. IT can also ensure employees have the latest programs and updates, which is essential to carry out their jobs effectively.
Onboarding New Employees: An IT Perspective
Another advantage of using a VDI is during the onboarding process. Since IT will be setting up virtual machines similarly for each line of business, using VDI can reduce the downtime required with setting up new employee workstations. This could prove advantageous, as many IT workers aren’t too enthusiastic about their current onboarding processes. In fact, 47 percent of IT professionals rate their onboarding process as merely satisfactory.(1) In this environment, IT needs all the help it can get to improve the onboarding experience for new hires; VDI can help in this scenario.
Staying Secure In Today’s World
Centralizing applications on a single server can also positively impact network security. This is welcome news, especially at a time when cyberattacks are on the rise partly thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.(2) With VDI, security updates only need to be deployed into a single environment, which then gets pushed to all the virtual machines at once. With VDI, IT can take confidence in the fact that all machines have the same security protocols in place; there aren’t any missing links due to employees forgetting or delaying security updates on their own machines.
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Conclusion
In the era of remote work, updating employees’ technology from individual computers to virtual desktop interfaces makes sense. IT workers aren’t down the hall anymore and can’t respond to issues the way they used to. With IT needing to troubleshoot every issue remotely, standardizing IT tools will become a key component in the IT toolkit, enabling them to troubleshoot issues faster, even remotely.
Even as organizations look to the future and imagine their employees returning to the office, it’s important to note that VDI won’t stop being a critical component of IT. Employees will be commuting back to the office and accessing projects and documents on their mobile devices once again. With a VDI solution, they’ll be able to do just that, in the same secure environment. IT departments have built for them.
VMWare’s VDI offerings such as VMWare Horizon, a core component in VMware’s Future Ready Workforce Solutions, allows companies to deliver virtual desktops and applications to employees at scale. By taking advantage of VDI, IT departments can ensure their applications, programs and data are centralized, while being made available to employees no matter where they are.
VMware provides the tools for an unparalleled, scalable infrastructure. Learn how VMWare can scale your VDI solutions at vmware.com.
Sources
- VMWare (2020). IT and your employee experience survey.
- Jaffee, L. (2020). "COVID-19 accounts for most 2020 cyberattacks." SC Media.
More Thought Leadership from VMWare
- Executive Profile Q&A: Brian Madden: The Future of Work Is Here
- Supporting Employees as They Attempt to Maintain Work/Life Balance During a Pandemic
- Opportunities to Optimize the Employee Experience
- Jump-Starting Return to the Office Plans
- Delivering Exceptional IT Service When the Office Isn’t the Office
- Cloud Elasticity: Continuous Access to the Resources You Need
- Centralized Computing Power in a Decentralized Work Environment
- Preparing Employees for Day-One Readiness
- Leveraging Network Agility As Demand Shifts Into an Uncertain Normal
- Reviewing the Security Strategy in the New Normal: What to Watch For
- Rethinking Security Strategies for Today’s Distributed Workforce
- Cyberattacks Are Increasing — Here’s How to Stay Safe
- Zero Trust — A Security Mindset
