The COVID-19 pandemic has left nobody unaffected. As countries continue to hunker down during their respective lockdowns, businesses have been searching for a solution to improve remote working to ensure they survive through this lockdown and subsequent business closure.
Electronic companies across the globe have been working tirelessly to revolutionise sourcing, therefore, making the location of workers almost irrelevant. Virtualisation has become the answer during this crisis. Virtualisation technology, such as Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) have allowed companies to function remotely optimally.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) are the hostings of desktop environments on a central server. Both these solutions are cloud-based; therefore, this allows people to access their unique and specific desktop from any device, from anywhere.
The main difference between the two solutions is that VDI solutions are typically operated and maintained by in-house IT staff and are usually located in an on-site data centre managed by IT administrators and staff. DaaS, on the other hand, is a fully outsourced solution that provides virtual desktops to businesses.
Benefits of VDI and DaaS
- Less bandwidth is used
- Reduces costs by up to 30%
- Users can access workstations from anywhere
- Higher workstation lifetime value
- Improved accessibility
- Better data security
- Improved business continuity
- Future-proofing
- Ability to back up data
- Ability to assign information access according to employee security clearance
While VDI and DaaS have many of the same benefits, they also have unique benefits. For example, DaaS requires less maintenance than VDI. Whereas VDI allowed businesses to have full control over hardware, software and data, making it ideal for highly sensitive computing environments.
The virtualisation of desktops, as well as technological advancements that optimise remote working, have been the saviours for many businesses throughout this pandemic. Due to companies getting a taste of how remote working could work in the long term, even post COVID-19, virtual desktops could soon be the new norm for many organisations.
