Questions to Ask: In-House VDI or Outsourced DaaS

As more companies embrace desktop virtualization, the question remains: build VDI in-house or use an outsourced desktop as a service (DaaS) provider?

The answer is: It depends. Every organization is unique, so there is no right answer for everyone. (We say that even as a DaaS provider!)

Whether in-house VDI or outsourced DaaS is right for you comes down to many nuanced business needs and capabilities. If you’d like to talk through you specific situation, we’re happy to chat. In the meantime, here’s a high level evaluation exercise that might point you in the right direction.

If the answer to the majority of these questions is “Yes,” you might be well positioned to implement in-house VDI. If the answer to the majority of these questions is “No,” in-house VDI may be more time, budget and resource intensive than you’d like and adopting an outsourced DaaS solution may be the better option.

Disclaimer: This is meant to be an exercise to help you self-identify needs and capabilities. Talking to a VDI professional or DaaS provider will give you a more accurate understanding of the right approach for your organization.

Infrastructure

Desktop virtualization takes specialized infrastructure to achieve the speed and performance today’s users expect. (That’s why it failed the first time around and why it’s Time to Revisit VDI.)

1. Do you have a clear understanding of what infrastructure is needed?
2. Do you have existing infrastructure to support desktop virtualization?
   • Does that infrastructure have good life left or will it need to be replaced soon?
3. If existing infrastructure is not in place, do you have the budget to add infrastructure?
4. Is updating and replacing infrastructure currently in the business budget?
5. Are you comfortable using public cloud services?
6. Does existing infrastructure or public cloud services offer compliance solutions that meet your needs?
   • Current needs?
   • Future needs?

Expertise & Support

Many IT roles are highly specialized and while professionals typically have an understanding of other tech areas, they don’t necessarily have the level of expertise required to fully manage those other areas – particularly with highly specialized areas like VDI.

1. Do you have in-house expertise to build, maintain and troubleshoot VDI?
   • Infrastructure?
   • Desktop imaging?
2. If you don’t currently have in-house expertise, is there budget and headcount to hire a VDI expert?
   • Do you have adequate time to recruit and hire an expert?
3. Do you have the personnel and time to support virtual desktops post-deployment?
   • Does existing support staff have the time to offer virtual desktop support?
   • Does existing support staff have the skills to offer virtual desktop support?

Business

Desktops impact everyone at an organization, which makes moving to virtual desktops a business-wide (rather than a straight forward tech) decision. In some cases, IT drives the move to virtual desktops, and in others it’s a business driven initiative. Either way, no transition to virtual desktops will be successful unless both groups are bought into the change. The direction of the organization as a whole and what they’re looking for from IT can have a major impact on whether in-house VDI or outsourced DaaS is the better option.

1. Is the company as a whole pursuing a shift to cloud-based services?
   • Will there be continued support for an in-house solution (or will it appear on the chopping block in the near-ish future)?
2. Is the business comfortable with CAPEX spending?
3. Would building and maintaining VDI in house benefit the corporate bottom line?
   • Is VDI a solution that could be monetized as a business offering?
4. If business insights into the VDI environment are desired, can you meet these requirements?
   • Do you have the budget to build or purchase insights and analytics tools?
   • Do you have the expertise and time to integrate/implement and maintain these tools?

Want to share this evaluation exercise with your team? Download the PDF version!