None of us, from government leaders all the way down to family and small business owners were prepared for the COVID-19 outbreak, and even more were surprised by the uncertainty it bred as panic-heavy weeks turned into uncertainty-laden months. In no time at all our favorite restaurants were closed, a simple cough was unexpectedly frightening and under the trend of BYOD, our daily commute was shortened to a walk from the bedroom to the kitchen to our home office.
Should we expect a second wave of infections? Will the summer months slow the spread of the virus? What unexpected long-term effects will we need to cope with in the upcoming years? Most importantly, what disaster will be face next?! Even though we aren’t sure when things will officially return to normal, it’s time to start planning for the future – and ensuring that we won’t be caught unaware again.
One IT option many corporations have been exploring with more conviction is the deployment of a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). Traditionally, VDI was deployed to address the issues of delays due to hardware damage, system failure and tedious software updates among many other issues. In his book, Virtualization Essentials, Matthew Portnoy says,
As companies began to see the benefits of virtualization, they no longer purchased new hardware when their leases were over, or if they owned the equipment, when their hardware maintenance licenses expired. Instead, they virtualized those server workloads. This is called containment. Containment benefited corporations in multiple ways. They no longer had to refresh large amounts of hardware year after year; and all the costs of managing and maintaining those servers—power, cooling, etc.—were removed from their bottom line from that time on.
Moving beyond the more traditional reasons for shifting to a virtual environment, virtual desktop solutions address two huge challenges enterprises are facing in this uncertain, COVID-inspired climate. First, how do we ensure employee devices are secure while working remotely, and secondly, how do we deliver the same fast, reliable application experience regardless of the device?
Endpoint Security
Endpoint protection is vital to protect company information, communication and applications. VDI provides much needed secure access requirements by offering multiple authentication methods which can be tailored to provide the appropriate level of access to business-critical systems, dependent on the needs of every employee from the executives, to the finance or sales professionals. Features like multi-factor authentication, document download and export audits and screenshot logging have become vital to ensuring personal customer data and critical company data doesn’t unknowingly fall into the wrong hands.
Simplified Desktop Operations
VDI provides unified and simple desktop operations for all employees, regardless of location or device by supporting the use of USB drives, printers, cameras and printers among other devices. High-availability features provide much needed desktop services while high reliability ensures sturdy storage options and lessens the risk of data loss due to disk or host failure.
If this solution sounds like it ticks all the boxes – what are the next steps? VDI provides an 80% reduction in deployment time, with 100 VM’s up and running in just 5 minutes. With a skeleton IT crew, the simplified O&M is vital, allowing IT administrators to set black and white lists based on varying security requirements and automating the security process. Should you encounter a security issue, just a few clicks will take you to the root cause of any security problem and just a few more clicks provide vital troubleshooting and protection.
Why Sangfor?
If you are interested in learning more about IT security, infrastructure and cloud trends in a post-COVID world, click HERE to register to join Sangfor webinar on Work from Home Solution. Sangfor has built their reputation on looking to the future for IT inspiration – and it’s needed now more than ever.
