Guest post by Tom Rose, Chief marketing Officer, Unidesk
Many are under the mistaken impression that Small and Mid-Sized Businesses have simple desktop use cases. And that SMBs can succeed with a simple, but limited, VDI solution. While that may be true for some, it’s definitely not true for most. Unidesk and VMware have been partnering to deliver desktop virtualization solutions for many SMBs, and this is what we hear:
- “I may be a small city, but I have all the same applications and desktop diversity larger cities have. It’s just that instead of having 20-30 users on any given app, I have 3-5.”
- “A one-size-fits all desktop wouldn’t work for us. I need an easy way to deliver apps in different combinations to different desktops.”
- “We delegate administration to some of our more advanced end users so they can install the software they need and not have to wait. My IT guys also install software directly on desktops to respond to one-off app requests. Our VDI solution needs to preserve these user-installed and IT-installed apps.”
On the flip side, it’s definitely true that SMB IT organizations are thinly staffed, and need simplicity when it comes to implementing and managing VDI.
- “We have 5 people in IT, and desktops aren’t anyone’s full-time job. We don’t have time to update a bunch of different Windows builds every time a new hot fix comes out.”
- “We have 50 apps for 300 users. We can’t build them all into one gold image for licensing and patching reasons. And I don’t want to be installing apps one at a time.”
- “Giving users admin rights gets them the apps they need faster, but they also screw up their desktops. We need a quick way to fix customized desktops at the help desk, without involving my Windows experts.”
- “We configured our labs using a VDI appliance solution, but we forgot how often professors change their minds. With all the apps built into our master image, we couldn’t respond to curriculum changes as fast as we needed to.”
If this sounds like you, try VMware View and Unidesk. With its high-performance PCoIP protocol, broad client support, and tight integration with VMware vSphere, VMware View makes virtual desktop brokering and access easy. On the management side, Unidesk’s desktop layering technology transforms desktop provisioning, application delivery, personalization, and desktop support. With Unidesk, you can have one clean gold image to patch and update for all desktops. Applications can be layered separately and added to desktops in any combination without re-installing. Layering an app averages 15-30 minutes – about the same time it takes to install an app once on a regular desktop. Unidesk desktops sustain user-installed apps and IT direct-installed apps so your SMB doesn’t have to slow down. If a user breaks a customized desktop, your help desk can roll back just the user customizations for instant repair. Unidesk also reduces VDI storage capacity requirements up to 70% for both persistent and non-persistent desktops.
Learn more about Unidesk’s tight integration with VMware View and VMware vSphere. Or follow these links to see how Unidesk and VMware View SMB customers are achieving both VDI simplicity AND flexibility:
Tarrant Regional Water District, TX
