4 Reasons VDI Adoption is Predicted to Increase

The benefits of desktop virtualization are tempting to almost any company and end user:

• Access documents and applications from anywhere, on any device
• Increased data security
• Easier desktop provisioning and trouble shooting
• Making BYOD simple and attainable

Now that the underlying technology has caught up to provide a high performance experience, organizations are revisiting VDI in increasing numbers. The global VDI market is expected to reach $10.15 billion by 2023, a 16.5% CAGR.

While declaring “the year of [insert popular tech trend here]” is overdone and rarely true because of the fluid nature of today’s technology, there are certainly growing trends that support this predicted increase of virtual desktop adoption. What makes the argument for growth even more compelling is the fact that these drivers are not new or unexpected. Organizations have been struggling to address these needs for the last several years and are likely primed to make a solution decision soon (if they haven’t already) since these trends show no signs of abating.

More Dispersed Workforce

Whether organizations like it or not, employee preference has shifted toward remote working and it doesn’t look like workers are going to change their minds any time soon. Global Workplace Analytics found that more than 80% of the US workforce reports the desire to work remote at least part time.

Flexible work environments have crept to the top of preferred benefits list, and employers that want to secure and retain top talent will need to figure out a way to accommodate those wishes, according to an article from Ladders.

“A whopping 44 percent of employees at various companies quoted the ability to log hours wherever as their top perk. In the coming year, [research director and work/life expert Heather] Chigas says organizations will capitalize on flexibility as a way to retain their workers.”

Even if organizations don’t embrace remote working, large companies often have several office locations or employee departments overseas. This means the company either has to support local IT for all these offices or opt for a solution that makes it simple for a centralized IT team to support the entire company. Desktop virtualization is a logical answer to that need (especially when it’s coupled with advanced VDI monitoring, management and troubleshooting capabilities).

Increasing Need for Security (and Persistent Skills Gap)

Last year was famously bad for data breaches and everyone pretty much unanimously agrees that 2018 probably won’t be much better. While threats like ransomware and insecure IoT have captured the most attention, there is still plenty organizations can do in-house to address risk areas they can better control:

• Keeping computer systems updated and patched
• Protecting against employee mishandling of data
• Implementing proper user controls to limit access
• Securing endpoints to protect data if devices are lost or stolen

While these tasks may sound simple enough, they can be hard to keep up with for strapped IT teams, especially with a workforce that may be remote, decentralized or using their own devices (BYOD). Meanwhile, if you pay attention to the IT or cybersecurity industry, you’ve been hearing about the expert shortage for years. The increasing need to ramp up cybersecurity plus the talent shortage is making this an alarming situation – 70% of organizations are affected by a cybersecurity skills shortage.  This shortage of expertise leaves companies vulnerable and struggling to fill the gaps.

Desktop virtualization actually makes those “simple” IT tasks as easy as they sound on paper. IT teams can implement updates and controls to all desktops at once (without having to touch each individual device or user profile) and the nature of virtual desktops ensures sensitive data is never stored on the endpoint, mitigating the risk of a lost or stolen device. Virtual desktops can also help address the skills gap. The emergence of desktop as a service (DaaS) allows organization to get the advantages of desktop virtualization without adding the need for a highly skilled in-house VDI team to its expertise struggle.

Overall Shift to Cloud Solutions

“Cloud first,” “cloud initiative,” and “digital transformation” are dominating IT budget and spending conversations as of late. More and more organizations are recognizing the advantages of adopting cloud solutions and Gartner predicts that this trend will sustain until at least 2020.

“Through 2020, an increasing percentage of annual IT spending will be directly or indirectly impacted by a cloud shift. … When organizations are faced with IT spending decisions, the consideration of using cloud services for new initiatives, or to replace existing systems, causes a shift in spending from traditional IT solutions to cloud. This results in the cloud shift, and it is happening more often due to a ‘cloud-first’ direction most organizations take when making IT spending decisions.”

When people talk about moving to the cloud, they typically discuss software (SaaS)/applications and data centers. The natural extension of this shift to the cloud is to virtualize the desktop. The data and applications end users access are increasingly living in the cloud, so why should the desktop be stuck in the past tethered to an individual device? That approach doesn’t fit with the “cloud first” mentality and advanced VDI solutions and service offerings mean there is no longer a technological excuse for not making the full shift.

Renewed Push to Focus on Core Business

All the above create an environment where IT is doing everything it can to keep up, leaving little to no time for innovation and having negative impact on organizations. From Forbes:

“Three out of four executives agree that the amount of time, money and resources spent on ongoing [IT Services] maintenance and management—versus new project development or new initiatives—is affecting the overall competitiveness of their organizations.”

While cybersecurity and maintaining desktops are critical to a company’s well-being, for the vast majority of organizations it’s not the core business focus. Desktop virtualization offers the ability to streamline many of the tedious day-to-day IT tasks (and may even outsource some of the support to the DaaS service provider), allowing more in-house time and resources for business-driving initiatives. To achieve the full effects of this approach, organizations should heavily consider the DaaS variety of desktop virtualization as building and maintaining an in-house solution can quickly take up even more time and resources rather than freeing up teams to focus on the core business.

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