We often get asked: “Why VDI?” This question commonly comes from organizations that already have a standard procedure of sending out physical laptops and desktops to their employees for work purposes. Although there’s no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to IT administration and managing endpoint devices, Horizon and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) can be an excellent technology option to replace or complement physical laptops and desktops.
Let’s look at 10 use cases where Horizon and VDI can be beneficial for organizations.
1. Remote work and telecommuting
Today’s workforce is no longer restricted by the location of their corporate office. Therefore, enabling employees to work from anywhere, on the go, and remotely with a consistent and secure environment regardless of where they are is paramount to setting the employee up for success. As a modern platform for secure delivery of virtual desktops and applications, Horizon, an integral part of the Anywhere Workspace solution, can help here. Horizon can be leveraged to provide employees with remote access to a virtual desktop and applications, providing a consistent and secure experience across multiple devices anywhere. Employees can access the same persistent desktop or non-persistent desktop with persistent experience from any device they’re on. No more having to go into the office to securely access corporate resources and receive a great digital employee experience.
2. Secure and compliant environment
Data security is a critical and crucial concern to individuals and organizations alike. Safeguarding sensitive information from unauthorized access, data breaches, and potential malicious activity should be top of mind for all. Many organizations must follow guidelines such as HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act), PCI (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard), and others from data security regulators, that include strict requirements to safely protect sensitive information. Although VDI is not a requirement among these regulations, Horizon can better help organizations achieve compliance with these regulations and enhance data security overall. With Horizon, you can isolate sensitive data from the end-user device, reducing the attack surface and ensuring that data is stored securely in a centralized and controlled environment. Horizon further supports data security by providing encryption, access controls, and secure remote access.
3. Bring your own device (BYOD)
Implementing Horizon in a BYOD environment further expands its benefits. Allowing employees to use their own personal devices reduces hardware costs because organizations do not need to ship out physical laptops every lifecycle. It also increases flexibility for employees to work on devices they are already comfortable with. Further, the time waiting for laptops to be delivered and the potential of shipment delays or losses are eliminated. With Horizon, this can all be accomplished while still maintaining security and control over your corporate data.
4. Environment standardization
There are many use cases where providing a standardized software environment is useful or even necessary. One example can be found within schools. Horizon and VDI technologies can help provide students and teachers with a seamless, consistent learning experience. If a school allows BYOD, this policy can create complexity with students possibly bringing different operating system devices, but that isn’t a problem with Horizon. Horizon is also great for student labs because students can use virtual desktops and apps to log on, work, and log off. The next student can repeat this process with the same VDI. Horizon allows each user to access the same virtual desktop and applications regardless of the physical device they choose to use. These capabilities provide teachers the confidence to focus on teaching, rather than worry about any technical difficulties.
5. Developer desktop
Using Horizon can be incredibly helpful when it comes to R&D of new apps or environments. Horizon allows users to provision virtual desktops with specific configurations, operating systems, and software stacks, and gives IT centralized management without the burden of specific hardware or software. This presents the opportunity for developers and testers to efficiently conduct their work. Once they are done, they can end their session and get back to their routine tasks.
6. Mobile workforce
Industries that rely heavily on a mobile workforce or fieldwork such as manufacturing or inventory management can benefit greatly from Horizon. When an employee goes from one site to another, the business systems could differ at each location. With Horizon, this is no longer a concern. The employee would be able to collaborate with both systems all on their mobile device through the virtual desktops and applications that are spun up. Now, whether an employee needs to provide real-time data entry on their storage/warehousing or if they only need to access a purchase order system, they can do all this on their personal mobile device.
7. Contract or temporary workers
For organizations that frequently hire contract or temporary seasonal workers, providing and delivering laptops can be costly and time-consuming. Instead, organizations can implement a BYOD policy for these workers to use their own devices to access a virtual desktop and applications. This decreases hardware costs for the organization while also streamlining the onboarding and training process for workers to begin as soon as possible. Horizon also enables IT admins to securely offboard contractors through the Horizon Console.
8. Training and onboarding
If you’re like me, you also had to wait a few days to receive your physical laptop from your new organization due to a delay in shipment. However, with Horizon, I was able to access my training and onboarding immediately after I joined my team through a virtual desktop on my personal device. This allowed me to be efficient by completing my training and accessing necessary apps I needed even before I received my physical laptop. The best part was that all the work I had done on my virtual desktop was saved and stored, allowing me to access this work once I received my corporate laptop. Further, with the increased flexibility of a remote workforce that Horizon helps enable, this capability allows organizations to expand their talent pool search outside of a specific geographic area, all while knowing that the training and onboarding can be streamlined prior to the employee receiving their corporate laptop.
9. Break/fix
Technical difficulties can leave an employee feeling helpless. Imagine this. A timely deadline is approaching, and your laptop is suddenly affected by the dreaded blue screen, halting all work as your laptop is out of commission. With Horizon, this would be a small speed bump, rather than a potential catastrophe. Horizon provides an added layer between the desktop environment and the end-user device. This allows organizations to spin up another virtual desktop for the employee to continue working from, with a device of their choosing. This can happen simultaneously with the organization’s IT department fixing the technical difficulties associated with the damaged laptop. With this said, the employee will be able to continue working toward their deadline, only losing a few minutes, rather than a few days of productivity.
10. Theft or loss
There is always the possibility of our devices being lost or stolen. This would be incredibly harmful for not only the individual but also the organization to which the device belonged. The individual would lose all the work they put toward their projects, and the organization would lose an asset and possibly sensitive corporate data. This could potentially put the organization in even more danger if the device was stolen with the intention of malicious activity, such as hacking. With Horizon, this risk can be mitigated because Horizon would separate the desktop environment from the end-user device. This would reduce the risk of data breaches by storing and securing all the data and applications within a centralized data center with encryption and access controls in place, not on the device. Plus, with tools such as Workspace ONE Mobile Threat Defense, all the data can be safeguarded and managed.
There you have it, 10 use cases where Horizon can help you and your organization! If you are ready to learn more about Horizon and the solutions we can provide, head over to the VMware Horizon page.
If you’re ready to see the benefits of Horizon firsthand, you can run a test drive by contacting your VMware representative or local partner.
Additional resources
Report: Innovation in a Distributed Work World
eBook: The Essential Technology Needs for Hybrid Work
White Paper: Reduce Management Overhead by Transforming VDI, DaaS and App Management with the Horizon Control Plane
