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November 5, 2020 | Bryan O'Neal

5 Reasons Businesses Choose Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

Businesses affected by the shift to a remote workforce are adapting IT infrastructures to meet the change. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), a form of desktop virtualization, lets your company’s employees securely access their desktop from anywhere. In this post, we explore five reasons why businesses choose VDI. Plus, you will learn about managed VDI.

Why VDI? Companies choose VDI for these reasons:

1. VDI keeps your workforce working, no matter the disruption

Cloud-based desktops promote business resilience during disruptions. Hurricanes, power outages, and pandemic WFH (work from home). Primary PC out of service? Can’t get to the office? Is your office not fit for habitation? Working from home for the foreseeable future? Not a problem. VDI is ideal for employees who need an alternative mode of access to their corporate desktop and familiar apps. An enterprise virtual desktop solution can serve users in any location and on any device that has a browser.

VDI is a popular remote desktop solution for a variety of scenarios: employees and contractors working from home, while traveling, hot desking, and in co-working spaces. A fast, full desktop experience and secure access to critical information and applications from a company-owned or bring-your-own device (BYOD) is available anywhere with internet connectivity.

2. VDI can improve your employee retention and acquisition initiatives

Your ability to support a remote or mobile workforce with virtual desktops enables your company to retain valued employees when they relocate or require a work-from-home solution. Plus, VDI might make your current employees happier, too. Technology-related factors make up 30% of what drives an engaged employee, according to Forrester.

In the same way, VDI can enable your company to acquire talent from farther afield—in other cities, rural workers, even globally.

3. VDI is device-agnostic and delivers desktops to a range of devices

Physical devices are a never-ending burden for IT. Forrester reports that 67% of organizations expect to replace corporate-owned laptops at least every three years. In contrast, VDI is device agnostic. Users connect to a secure VDI environment with authentication from any device with an HTML5-compatible browser and internet connectivity. VDI can extract valuable years of service from laptops, tablets and thin clients.

With VDI, the hardware on the user’s device does not drive performance. Higher performance in a managed VDI environment is driven by cloud-based hardware. Specifically, optional GPU hardware in a hosted private cloud delivers the higher performance needed for graphically advanced and compute-intensive workloads.

4. VDI creates another layer of IT security

Cloud desktops offer more security than running an OS or workspace locally, especially outside of your organization’s enterprise perimeter. Three advantages of VDI that can improve security are:

  1. VDI access is controlled with modern authentication and authorization technologies.
  2. Data from the virtual desktop lives on centralized infrastructure hosted in a secure data center, not on the user’s device.
  3. A virtual desktop environment is fully and centrally controlled from a data center where administrators can apply software patches and updates, change configurations, and enforce security policies.

Also read: A Strategy to Overcome Cloud Computing Security Risks

5. VDI enables digital transformation and cloud adoption

Digital transformation enables organizations to innovate changes across business processes and technologies to meet evolving market demands. A private cloud is, for many organizations, an integral part of their transformation to a hybrid or multicloud environment.

VDI is one of the many valuable uses of a private cloud. VDI can deliver a Windows workspace service sized based on your current and future requirements. Use cases range from office productivity to graphics-intensive applications.

A virtual desktop service is a win-win solution for users and IT transformation. A managed VDI service promotes business innovation and allows IT teams to shift away from management and upkeep of physical equipment, decreasing IT management overhead. VDI is scalable, so it can adapt as your business needs change or your user base grows to reach employees worldwide.

A managed VDI solution can help you now

While VDI does solve a number of common and immediate challenges, it is not without complexity when it comes to implementation and ongoing maintenance. For enterprises that are new to the concept or just not interested in the ongoing burden of infrastructure upkeep and VDI control plane maintenance the right solution for your IT team may be a VDI service delivered by a qualified Managed Services Provider, also known as DaaS or Desktop as a Service. A DaaS solution provides configuration, deployment, and ongoing administration and support for your managed dedicated VDI solution deployed in a secure, hosted private cloud infrastructure — all managed for you.

As a leading cloud and managed services provider, TierPoint delivers one-stop support from design to configuration and from deployment to monitoring and lifecycle maintenance of your enterprise virtual desktop solution. Plus, your managed VDI solution can be combined with security and productivity features such as managed multi-factor authentication (Managed MFA), Managed Office 365, and more.

At TierPoint, we are your virtual desktop experts. We take responsibility for design, configuration, deployment, and ongoing maintenance and support for all components. Our service includes proactive monitoring and performance optimization to ensure the utmost availability and best desktop as a service experience for your users. Learn about a TierPoint Hosted Private Cloud with Managed VDI implemented with Nutanix Frame.

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