How VDI Can Support Your Growing Remote Workforce
“There are many good use cases for VDI, but perhaps none is more compelling than work-from-home companies managing remote employees.”
SearchVirtualDesktop.com, 4/13/2016
While true in 2016, widespread virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) adoption never took hold because many leaders believed employees couldn’t be productive working from home.
But in the wake of COVID-19, VDI has taken on new urgency as increasing numbers of employees work from home. Not only do newer VDI solutions mirror the in-office desktop experience, they practically erase the cost, control, and security concerns of traditional VDI while overcoming the challenges of legacy desktop environments.
Challenges with traditional desktop environments
A recent ESG survey found, while software licensing inventory and compliance was the top challenge with traditional desktops, other issues related to IT productivity, cost, and processes were rated nearly as high, namely:
High cost of procurement – 35%
Hard to keep up with the high cost of technology change – 30%
Too much time spent troubleshooting issues – 29%
Operational costs – 29%
Too much time spent on patch management/updating desktops – 28%
IT employee downtime due to desktop refreshes – 25%
Too much time spent fielding help desk issues – 25%
Threat of physical device loss/theft – 25%
Difficult to manage hardware/software compatibility – 25%
In addition, as organizations have increasingly looked to the cloud as a way to increase business agility and lower costs, they’ve discovered that:
- Not every workload is a good fit for the public cloud;
- The cloud isn’t as cost effective as predicted;
- They no longer want to be in the data center business; and
- Needs for data sovereignty, privacy, performance, or security may require apps and data to remain on premises.
Organizations are now making decisions about how, when, and if employees should return to the workplace and what that will look like from a technology standpoint. What’s certain is that many more people will be working from home than ever before, forcing them to re-evaluate VDI solutions as a way to overcome the challenges of traditional desktops and remote work solutions.
HPE GreenLake for VDI: Fast-deploying, flexible, affordable
While there are cost, control, and security concerns with a traditional VDI, companies quickly discovered how HPE GreenLake for VDI enabled them to switch to a 100 percent remote infrastructure.
HPE GreenLake offers a fast, flexible, low-risk way to quickly deploy a VDI, while squeezing cost and agility from an on-premise environment and managing it, with public cloud workloads, as part of your multi-cloud infrastructure.
Employees enjoy a seamless desktop experience, whether they’re working in the office or remotely, while IT teams get a secure, on-prem environment that boosts their productivity.
- Get everything as a service – Modernize your environment with a cloud-like on-prem experience and remove the hassles of day-to-day IT management and maintenance.
- Have it built to order – Get the gear you need today, nothing more, nothing less—and save on the cost and time of overprovisioning.
- Add services with a click – Simplify and speed provisioning by adding services in real time—no more waiting an average of 130 days just to purchase what you need.
- Pay as you go – Save finance headaches with flexible payment options and consumption-based pricing that conserves cash—a boon in uncertain times.
- Re-focus IT resources on the business – Take your people off of maintaining machines and put them on creating business innovations—we’ll manage and maintain your VDI for you.
HPE GreenLake for VDI: Use cases
HPE GreenLake for VDI offers standardized options that allow you to select a mix of users and user types based on your needs. Plus, you can scale and change that mix to meet business demands, such as seasonal fluctuations. Consider these use cases:
- Task workers that perform routine, repetitive tasks using a small number of low-compute-intensity applications.
- Knowledge workers that primarily use productivity applications and have some web browsing needs.
- Developers, designers, and other power users who use office applications extensively and have mid-level graphics requirements (with a persistent or non-persistent desktop).
- Engineers and those with graphic-intensive requirements for CAD-type applications made possible by virtual GPU technology.
Logicalis: Your HPE Platinum Partner and solution provider
An HPE partner since 1993, Logicalis has a strong relationship with the HPE team and knows HPE technologies inside and out. We’re also committed to delivering the right solution for your needs.
To fully understand those needs, we’ll conduct an executive-level workshop with your key stakeholders. Then we’ll perform an assessment, before architecting a solution for your consideration. In fact, we just helped a cash-strapped customer acquire GreenLake in just 4 days—from initial discussion to POC to agreement to implementation!
Watch this Logicalis + HPE webinar to learn more about HPE GreenLake and how a next-generation VDI solution can better serve the needs of your organization and its remote workers.
Brandon Harris is the Senior Director/Data Center Technology Sales for Logicalis, responsible for helping to solve customers’ data center issue