What You Need to Know About Modern VDI

With the pace that cloud and virtualization solutions are growing right now it’s easy to dismiss some solutions as “not worth the time.” Unfortunately, virtual desktops often fall into this category because of a general misconception about the technology and a lack of understanding of modern solutions.

We’ve already dispelled some common virtual desktop myths, but there are a few other things you should know about modern VDI. It might just change your mind about this particular virtualization solution.

VDI Performance Isn’t Bad … Anymore

Yes, it’s true that early attempts at desktop virtualization had very poor performance. This is because the solutions were built on infrastructure that wasn’t designed to support the specific needs of desktop virtualization. Those issues and their root causes have been recognized and addressed by modern VDI and desktop as a service providers.

Between improved architecture, infrastructure, storage and other features, the performance of modern VDI is very much in line with the performance of a traditional desktops. When properly provisioned and maintained, users won’t notice a difference.

Virtual Desktops Can Support Voice & Video

The performance of VDI has improved so much that now it’s not uncommon for properly built solutions to seamlessly support two-way calls, softphone integration and high def video streaming without any lag. Common apps like Ring Central, Skype for Business, Five9, inContact and other communication platforms are supported by many VDI providers.

This makes VDI a much more viable solution for use cases such as customer care, remote working, telehealth and business needs that require virtual meeting support.

VDI is Difficult to Do in House

While VDI technology has come a long way since it first appeared, it has also become increasingly complex. This level of complexity is necessary to achieve the performance and application support needed for desktop virtualization to a viable solution.

Because virtual desktop infrastructure is so specific, it’s difficult and expensive to build in house and often requires the input of a VDI expert. Building a solution in house also limits some of its more alluring features, like easy scalability and easier IT management. If in-house teams need to support another, highly complex system, nothing really becomes much easier overall.

Virtual Desktops are Ideal for M&A and Disaster Recovery

When the topic of virtual desktops come up, a few key use cases often come to mind:

• Supporting remote workers
• Increasing employee mobility
• Securing BYOD (bring your own device) and company data

These are all great use cases for virtual desktops, but there are two other areas where VDI is extremely useful. In disaster recovery (or business continuity) situations, having the ability for employees to access their desktops from anywhere, on any device with an internet connection helps organizations ensure productivity isn’t disrupted. Whether an employee can’t get into the office or an endpoint has been corrupted, the virtual desktop is still accessible.

The other lesser known use case is quickly accommodating mergers or acquisitions. In M&A scenarios, IT teams need a fast, reliable way to get all employees access to the same systems, applications and data – regardless of office location. This can often take months to achieve in person. Virtual desktops are an ideal interim or permanent solution to supporting the new, larger corporate footprint.

Desktop Virtualization Provides a Huge Amount of Business Insights

This is one of the newest and most exciting benefits of desktop virtualization. By moving desktops to the cloud and centralizing management, organizations have gained the ability to access a huge amount of business insights they previous had no way of getting to.

Before, desktops were a means to an end and didn’t offer any insight into usage. Today’s virtual desktop solutions offer admins and business leaders insights into how the network is performing, how appropriately desktop resources are provisioned, how those resources are being used, what employees are doing, rolling usage and demand trends and much more information that can be used to optimize approaches and make smart, data-backed business decisions.

You may also like:

• Why Desktop as a Service (Not Just VDI)
• Desktops Aren’t Just Tech, They’re Business Solutions
• What In-House IT Does When Outsourcing VDI