Businesses Can Save Money, Increase Productivity, and Enhance Security with Desktop Virtualization
What is a Virtualization Desktop Infrastructure?
With a virtual desktop infrastructure, or virtual desktop interface (VDI), companies can save on resources at the individual personal desktop computer level. Each staff member has an individual PC to use called a thin client. Thin clients are not as powerful as a full-fledge PC. Instead each thin client works with and stores all its data remotely with the VDI server. Businesses will find that having a VDI benefits their budget, productivity, and security.
Cost Savings
The cost savings is probably what initially draws many companies and organizations to desktop virtualization. Companies will save on IT costs, as purchasing and setting up a virtualization desktop infrastructure is less expensive than buying an equivalent number of full-scale desktop computers or laptops. As companies expand and gain more employees, the cost to purchase and deploy new thin clients will be less than if a regular desktop was needed for each new employee.
Maintaining and managing your VDI will also cut down on internal IT expenses. Updating licensing, software, and hardware will for the most part be done only on the server. This takes considerably less time than updating every desktop computer. As an example, to deploy a software upgrade to a server can save a company many work hours as it may only take a few days. In contrast, a software upgrade for a company that has hundreds of individual PCs can take months to complete.
When moving from using individual personal desktop computers to a virtualization desktop infrastructure, you can also expect a reduction in your energy bills. This savings comes from the reduced amount energy required to run the thin clients.
Increased Productivity
Since all information and data is stored on a remote server, employees can have access to their work desk at anytime and from most any location. Whether from a home PC, laptop, tablet, iPad or even a smartphone, you just have to login to gain full access to your work computer and files. When emergencies happen or a client needs something right away, you don’t have to have physical access to the computer at the office to handle the situation.
Increased Security
A laptop being stolen from the trunk of a car or break in at the office not only puts your client’s sensitive information at risk, it can become a PR nightmare. Virtual desktops greatly reduce the risk that your company or client’s data can be accessed if a company laptop or thin client gets stolen. First, all sensitive information can be stored on the remote server, making it more difficult for a thief to access it than if it was directly stored on the laptop or computer. Secondly, once the theft has been reported, the IT department can take immediate measures to change passwords and security protocols for the remote server.
How Do You Get Started with VDI?
Most likely you will need to do some further research and analysis to confirm if VDI is the right solution for your organization. But setting up a VDI is very similar to setting up a server virtualization environment. The main virtual software vendors (VMware, Citrix and Microsoft) all have products for VDI. As for hardware, it typically requires some virtual host servers, a storage area network (SAN), and network components. Again, the hardware and software should be based on your needs identified by your analysis. As the use of desktop virtualization increases, you’ll all see more apps come onto the market to allow you to use an iPad or smartphone to connect to the office.
