Top 7 Benefits Of Using Desktop Virtualization

Are your servers underutilized? Are IT costs a drain on your budget? Are your IT employees tied up in multiple user tickets?

If yes, you must consider desktop virtualization to improve resource utilization while reducing costs. With virtualization, you can create abstract layers on the underlying physical hardware. This allows employees to access enterprise resources regardless of the device or OS they are using.

Your preferred OS and applications can run in a data center or cloud. Employees access the same physical server or cloud, but they have their own virtual images.

The three popular desktop virtualization types are Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, Remote Desktop Services, and Desktop-as-a-Service.

If your organization has limited IT resources, you can consult with MSPs and explore their IT service desk outsourcing offering. This way, you can leverage the latest technologies, get immediate access to technical expertise, and better manage resources.

If you want to know how virtualization can help your business, here are some benefits for you.

• Centralized Management
• Improved Security
• Reduce IT Costs
• Flexible Infrastructure
• Reduced Downtime
• Improved Productivity
• Power Efficiency

A stable and secure IT infrastructure is essential for your employees to work efficiently on their deliverables. Maintaining the infrastructure involves activities like upgrades, data control, backup, recovery, and proactive monitoring, among others.

With desktop virtualization, your IT team can offer centralized support. So, for example, in case of an issue, the fix can be applied to a limited number of systems, and all users can benefit from the fix.

In case of upgrades or security patches, the IT team can use the golden image that can be used to deploy new instances. When users connect to the VM, their instances will automatically be upgraded.

In traditional desktop setups, security updates and patches are often the responsibility of the employees. But, if employees miss out on or delay these updates, it leaves your IT infrastructure and data vulnerable.

The IT team can take care of essential security updates with desktop virtualization. Applications that are no longer required can be uninstalled. Virtualization makes it easier to prevent unauthorized access and protect the server from issues like malware.

Files reside on the server and not on the employee’s device. So even if the device does get compromised, cybercriminals cannot access company data.

In the case of a non-virtualized environment, you will be paying for expensive hardware and software licenses. Your operational costs will be higher. You will also have to spend additional effort on upgrades and maintenance.

With solutions like VDI and DaaS, you can limit software licenses to employees who need them. Employees can log in using thin clients or through their preferred devices.

The IT team will still be required to support the infrastructure and employees, but centralized management can significantly reduce the efforts needed.

There can be upfront costs involved with desktop virtualization, but the solution offers a good return on investment.

The pandemic has brought a cultural shift in the workplace. According to data projections by Ladders, remote work will continue to gain traction in 2023. By the end of 2022, 25% of professional jobs in North America will be remote.

Employees consider remote working as an essential feature when looking for new jobs. Thus, it is crucial for organizations to recognize this shift and offer employees workplace flexibility.

With desktop virtualization, you can onboard employees more quicker. Instead of procuring hardware and setting up software and applications, the IT team can create a new employee account, configure permissions, and complete onboarding. This way, you can hire employees from anywhere around the globe.

It also makes it easier to scale the IT infrastructure up and down as required. For example, if you are scaling a team, you can implement the BYOD policy, set up permissions, and let employees start work immediately.

In a non-virtualized environment, a hardware issue can result in significant downtime. For example, if an employee’s desktop or laptop does not work, they will have to wait until a technician comes and fixes the device.

If many users are facing a complex IT issue that needs the skill of an L3 specialist, the wait time can further increase.

The situation can worsen in case of disasters wherein employees cannot reach the office premises. Your business will remain unavailable until the recovery plan involving resource setup in a secondary location is not executed.

With desktop virtualization, your IT team can have VMs ready much quicker, proving to be a better business continuity plan.

In many organizations, the internal IT team handles multiple responsibilities. For example, tool deployment, upgrades, security patches, help desk requests and issues, and network monitoring are handled by the IT team.

Such maintenance tasks can be tedious and repetitive, take away time from skilled IT resources, and affect their productivity.

With virtualization, there will be fewer servers to maintain. Updates and new apps can be installed and managed centrally.

This helps free up employee time that can be better spent on IT tasks like cybersecurity, product development, automation, and AI.

Also, consider outsourcing your help desk requirements to lessen the burden on your internal team further.

Organizations have their physical servers sitting in data centers. The more the number of servers, the more the carbon footprint of the data center.

According to a report by the International Energy Agency, data centers use about 200 TWh of electricity. This accounts for 1 to 1.5% of global electricity use.

With desktop virtualization, you can reduce the number of physical servers your organization uses. This can help reduce the carbon footprint of your data center. And you also save money on your energy bills.

Desktop virtualization is one of the best ways to improve resource utilization and secure your organization’s assets while reducing costs.

The tool offers other benefits like centralized management, workplace flexibility, reduced downtime, and improved efficiency and productivity.

Modernizing your IT infrastructure can help your internal IT team to focus on innovative deliverables that can help grow your business and bring in more revenue.