Desktop virtualization technologies can help enterprises design and deliver superior end-user experiences for the workplace of the future. Desktop virtualization adopts a user-centric approach to securely deliver data and applications to employees across any device from any location. It provides a flexible, agile environment while ensuring security and availability. Understanding employee needs through user profiling is key to identifying the right virtualization deployment methods and enhancing productivity and experience. Managing the virtual desktop environment well after implementation also requires addressing challenges to maintain optimal performance over time.
2. Designing End-User Experience for Workplace of the Future
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Executive Summary
The success of an Enterprise digital transformation lies in transforming
operational processes, driving efficiencies, creating new revenue streams,
and enhancing customer and employee experiences holistically. While the
focus on leveraging customer-centric technologies and systems have always
been a prerogative for enterprises, there is a significant change in how
enterprises now perceive end-user computing (EUC) as a key enabler of
digital transformation that could enhance workforce productivity and deliver
seamless experience to their employees.
The workplace has completely changed now as employees prefer to use
multiple devices with anywhere and anytime computing. This is primarily
being fueled by changing business dynamics and IT consumption patterns of
workforce. For an enterprise, this means delivering a seamless and secure
experience for their end-users is a priority, while they access data and
applications in this era of ubiquitous computing. However, this is easier said
than done, as delivering an exceptional end-user experience is often a
complex and challenging process in an EUC environment. This whitepaper
highlights how enterprises can use virtualization technologies to design and
deliver superior end-user experience for Workplace of the Future.
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The Evolution of Workplace
Research confirms that seven out of ten employees globally, work remotely1)
once a week, while more than five out of ten employees work half the week
remotely. Employees no longer prefer to be glued to their desktops on a 9 to
5 routine but are more adaptive to an environment that offers them the
flexibility to work from anywhere. So, what’s driving this change in the
behavior of end-users. Let us discuss the factors that are accelerating the
workplace evolution.
▪ Smart Devices – The computing power of devices has leapfrogged in less
than two decades, with present day smartphones offering robust
computing power.
▪ End-point Security – Increased focus on data security has resulted in
much greater focus on where data resides in an organization, who can
access it and how. End points are particularly vulnerable from a security
point of view and any modern EUC solution must ensure a fully secured
end-point.
▪ Centralization of IT – The consolidation of the technological resources
offers multiple advantages including simplification of administrative tasks,
enhanced security and improved data management. This permits
employees to access all centralized IT resources as per appropriate user
privileges without any attendant complexities.
▪ Increased Mobility – With employees being always connected, Mobility is
leading to enhanced efficiency, productivity, and flexibility in customer
facing operations2). Enterprises now get to leverage the benefits and
flexibility of device diversity, unified consoles and swift deployment—all in
one go.
▪ Windows 10 – The versatility and features of Windows 10 continues to
retain its appeal among users. The possibilities of working on the same
platform without the need for possessing a personal computer makes End
User Computing more convenient.
▪ SaaS Model of Consumption – There is an increasing preference from
enterprise users to consume IT (whether software or hardware) in a “pay
as you consume” mode and a reluctance to commit heavy upfront capital
expenditure as in the past.
Designing End-User Experience for Workplace of the Future
1) International Workplace Group: http://www.iwgplc.com/
2) https://www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/content/advantages-and-disadvantages-mobile-technology
Seven out of ten
employees globally,
work remotely once a
week, while more
than five out of ten
employees work half
the week remotely.
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Desktop Virtualization – the Key to
Future Workplace
The digital workplace today is about empowering users with data and
applications while ensuring zero business interruption across locations and
devices. This requires providing a highly flexible and agile environment to
users, wherein they continue to access data and applications specific to their
work, while IT teams can manage frequent updates and patches without any
disruption to end-users. This is made possible by Desktop Virtualization,
which adopts a user-centric approach to securely deliver data and
applications to both internal and external stakeholders in an organization.
Designing End-User Experience for Workplace of the Future
What is Desktop Virtualization?
Desktop Virtualization is a technology that empowers end-users with a virtual
computing environment across devices (desktops, laptops, tablets, mobile
phone, etc.) and locations thereby delivering a consistent user experience. It
ensures a secure, highly available, cost effective end-user desktop
infrastructure wherein, end-user desktops are hosted on a centralized server,
while ensuring maximum control and security over access and usage of
desktops by end-users. For enterprises, Desktop virtualization offers the
following benefits,
▪ Cost Optimization – Desktop virtualization brings down the capex
investments associated with hardware refreshes. Virtualization solutions
are not only cost effective on a TCO basis, but these solutions come with
opportunities to optimize capex and opex depending on the customer
requirement.
▪ Device and Location Independence – Virtualization ensure availability of
user desktops across several devices and geographically spread locations
enabling seamless access to data and applications. This not only helps in
improving employee productivity but makes it easier to implement BYOD
(Bring Your Own Device) policy which is essential to manage numerous
devices used within the organization.
▪ Robust Security – Virtualization provides a data theft and loss proof
computing environment to end-users as all data and applications are
hosted on the central server and can be monitored and managed
centrally.
▪ Low Energy Consumption – Virtualization brings down energy
consumption as Thin Clients /Zero Clients use little processing power and
has less electric power and cooling requirements.
Desktop Virtualization
adopts a user-centric
approach to securely
deliver data and
applications to both
internal and external
stakeholders in an
organization.
Desktop Virtualization
ensures a secure,
highly available, cost
effective end-user
desktop infrastructure.
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Desktop Virtualization is not “One Size Fits All” but requires a tailored
approach to identify use cases to be implemented across the board.
Organizations have the option to choose between in-house Virtual Desktop
Infrastructure (VDI) or Desktop as a Service (DaaS) before deploying the
technology as per their requirement. Let’s outline the two forms of
deployment to understand more about the technology.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure:
For organizations that have already invested in building or owning in-house
data centers, VDI as a virtualization solution makes sense as it addresses the
challenges in upgrading traditional physical desktops and reduces cost on IT
refresh. With the data center situated in-house, organizations have full
control over software, hardware and data accessed by end-users via their
virtual desktops. VDI minimizes the risk of data theft or loss even if the device
crashes or is stolen as all data is stored centrally on a server. However, VDI
requires management of various technologies (servers, storage, networking,
thin clients, and virtualization software, etc.) provided by different vendors
making the implementation a complex and challenging process for
organizations on their own. It also requires specialized IT skills to manage the
virtual infrastructure, which adds to the complexity further. Organization
implementing VDI, often need a partner with a focused approach to
implement and manage virtual desktop infrastructure successfully.
Anunta, with its years of experience in design, implementation and
management of over 77,000 end-points for over 100,000 users globally
assists its customers in delivering unmatched end-user experience across
industry verticals.
Desktop as a Service:
According to an IDC report (2016), Cloud specific spending is expected to be
six times more than general IT spend through 2020. This means that the rate
of Cloud adoption for enterprises is set to accelerate. Organizations that
haven’t yet invested in in-house data centers, organizations that plan to have
a hybrid environment or organizations that aim to move their IT spend from
capex to opex may have greater propensity to leverage the benefits of VDI on
cloud. Available as pay as you go, DaaS reduces the overall total cost of
ownership (TCO) of desktop computing as the upfront spend on
infrastructure is negated. Further the cost of owning specialized VDI technical
skills, desktop maintenance and infrastructure depreciation is eliminated.
Cloud hosted Virtual desktops are typically subscribed at a pay per user rate
on a monthly basis.
Anunta has been successfully deploying Cloud hosted desktops across Cloud
platforms such as Microsoft Azure, VMware Horizon Cloud, SoftLayer, and
Amazon Web Services for its customers globally.
Desktop Virtualization
is not “One Size Fits
All” but requires a
tailored approach to
identify use cases to
be implemented
across the board.
6. Essentials for Designing the Workplace
of the Future
While next generation technologies which can provide the workplace of the
future are already available, in many case lack of awareness of both the
technological evolution as well as clarity in terms of what business needs
hinder enterprises from adopting them. It is not just the selection of the
appropriate technology, but many other factors are needed to be considered
in designing the workplace of the future. Let’s examine some of the key
factors that needs to be considered while addressing the requirements of the
end-users.
Understanding the User Needs
Understanding End-user requirements should be at the center of all activities
planned in designing the digital workplace. This typically involves mapping
user needs and identifying their work preferences, applications they require,
accessibility to devices and how they perform their daily operations. This will
help in engineering the workplace transformation that is suited to the needs
of end-users. For instance, some of the different work group identified can
include, task workers, administrators, on-the-go professionals, remote
workers, office professionals, work from home professionals, creative and
design professionals, partners, contractors and BYOD workers. The idea of
user profiling exercise is to understand how each user group operate daily
and accordingly design an EUC architecture that enables their workplace
accessibility and enhances superior end-user experience for them. In an EUC
environment, the decision on virtualization deployment methods could also
be done basis user profiling and understanding user consumption of
compute, network and storage requirements. Organizations also need to
ensure security of data and applications while provisioning virtualization
technologies to their end-users. Based on user profiling, various deployment
options can be implemented to ensure end-users receive the right
virtualization technology to access their desktops. Some of the commonly
deployed virtualization options are,
▪ Session Based Virtualization: Delivers individual session on a virtual
machine or a server where each virtual machine is shared by multiple
users.
▪ Non-Persistent VDI: Delivers a virtual machine that where sessions are
not reserved or locked and can be accessed by multiple users. The desktop
allows users to access their data on different PCs, as systems refresh
themselves once the user has logged off.
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7. ▪ Persistent VDI: Delivers a virtual machine like non-persistent VDI except
that user sessions are reserved or locked. This type of virtual machine is
designed to suit the needs of individual users.
▪ Hosted Shared Desktop: Delivers shared desktops hosted on a server and
connected to multiple thin clients. This type of virtualization enables
multiple users to access the same desktop screen concurrently. This is also
called RDSH (Remote Hosted Desktop).
The suitability of these deployment options for various roles are matched
only after gathering requirements through an exhaustive assessment of user
roles, responsibilities, and organizational needs.
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Anytime, Anywhere Computing (Application Delivery
Architecture)
Traditionally applications are delivered to users with a device centric
approach in which the users are locked to a certain type of desktop/laptop.
This leads to major inefficiencies in user experience, performance and IT
management. Digital era expects users to have seamless access to the
applications irrespective of the end-device they are using. Be it a thick
desktop, thin client, mobile devices the user experience should be seamless.
Also the expectation goes beyond for a secured access of corporate
applications through the personal devices owned by the users (BYOD).
Solutions like VDI/DaaS delivers a user centric approach instead of device
centric. It provides all the freedom user needs but at the same time gives the
control to corporate IT to ensure security, compliance and performance of
the application/data.
Addressing EUC, Post-Implementation Challenges
It is important to realize that a virtual desktop environment is architecturally
very different from traditional EUC environments and need to be managed
differently to get its full benefit and to obtain optimal performance.
Enterprise often fail to manage their newly virtualized environment due to
lack of technical knowledge and experience.
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Day 2 (post deployment) services are therefore critical dimensions in
implementation of solutions. This include the need for proper and
comprehensive monitoring with appropriate analytics and dashboards
offering an integrated view of systems. Traditional monitoring
methods/platforms are often unsuitable to offer the kind of monitoring and
holistic view of the environment that virtualized environments require.
Typically, Day 2 services should ensure that:
▪ End-user experience in accessing applications through virtual terminal are
superior.
▪ Proactive monitoring of end-to-end infrastructure which reflects end-user
performance metrics.
▪ Problems are quickly isolated, preferably in anticipation of any adverse
impact on the end-user.
▪ SLAs focused on end user performance are established and adhered to.
Precious IT resources of the enterprise are released to focus on other
important business priorities.
▪ Hybrid skills of all aspects of technology (desktop, network, server,
storage, virtualization) to be available to support VDI platform.
▪ An environment is created that enables the virtualization footprint to be
expanded swiftly if required.
▪ Centralized control on the change management with security and
compliance at the highest focus.
▪ Operational governance model focusing on establishing greater end-user
experience.
Conclusion
Desktop virtualization is no longer just a cost saving opportunity over
hardware refreshes but is gaining importance in accelerating enterprise
digital transformation by enabling digital workplace. With the increase in
number of smart devices, delivering seamless experience for end-users when
accessing enterprise applications, business data and productivity tools are
both complicated and challenging for IT teams. It is time for enterprises to
adapt their EUC architecture to address the needs of their end-users while at
the same time ensures secure access to data and applications. Most
organizations that have adopted virtualization technologies are already
reaping the benefits of enhanced employee productivity, increased
operational efficiency, higher business performance and creating impactful
customer experiences along their digital journey. As Cloud adoption gains
momentum, the focus on user-centric approach in order to deliver
exceptional end-user experience will become more critical for the success of
workplace of the future.
It is time for
enterprises to adapt
their EUC architecture
to address the needs
of their end-users
while at the same
time ensures secure
access to data and
applications.
9. About Anunta
Anunta® is a recognized specialist in cloud and desktop virtualization technologies, managing over 77,000+
endpoints across 100,000+ users globally. We deliver unmatched end user experience with 99.98% application
delivery in a computing environment to today’s workforce with anytime, any device and anywhere access. Our
solutions simplify IT and maximize performance and availability of data and applications at the user end, at an
optimum cost. We have always been at the cutting edge of technology in the End User Computing (EUC) space
offering operational flexibility and customization in delivering unmatched end-user experiences. Anunta is a Red
Herring Top 100 Global company and is ISO 20000 certified for ITSM and ISO 27001 certified for ISMS.
