Desktop Virtualization: Key Insights and Best Practices

Technological advancements play a major role in how businesses operate. AI is the most evident example of this trend. It only makes sense to make use of these innovations as they provide a lot of benefits and help improve how organizations operate. Even outside the business landscape, advances like AI and cloud computing have reshaped the world to a more integrated state.

Desktop virtualization is another technology that has gained traction in recent years. Its concept originated in the late 1960s when IBM successfully created software to divide a physical desktop’s resources and distribute them to multiple users. In the modern world, desktop virtualization is used to create a virtual software-based instance of an end-user's desktop and operating system. This cloud virtual desktop can then be operated from any device that has access to a working internet connection.

The main advantage virtualization offers businesses is evident; it enables remote work and provides a consistent interface for all end users, compliant with organizational policies and security standards. The technology also allows individual users to remotely access their system, providing a great deal of flexibility. Although desktop virtualization does benefit individuals, its advantages are far more substantial for corporate organizations.

This post aims to elaborate on the benefits of desktop virtualization and the best ways to make use of them for optimized business operations.

Understanding Desktop Virtualization

The most significant difference between a virtual desktop and a traditional one is that virtualization prevents you from being tied down to a single location. Any basic device with an internet connection would be able to remotely access your virtual environment, often managed by a cloud service provider, without having to carry the hardware around. Follow the link for a more comprehensive read on What is a VDI.

Hypervisors and virtual machines (VMs) are the underlying components that make desktop virtualization possible. Hypervisors are abstraction software that creates and separates the VMs from the hardware. Each VM is an individual virtual desktop, and its access can be shared with the necessary users. The are many advantages of desktop virtualization, and it can be implemented in one of three different ways.

Desktop as a Service (DaaS) is a cloud-based virtualization approach, managed by a cloud service provider. The virtual desktops are hosted on the service provider’s servers and organizations can specify their requirements to gain access to necessary resources and computational power.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) operates like the previous approach, but the desktops are hosted on the organization’s servers. This offers businesses greater flexibility and control over their systems while still benefiting from virtualization.

Remote Desktop Services (RDS) is a Microsoft-based virtualization approach in which the desktops are hosted on a central server, hosted either by the organization or a third-party cloud service provider. The greatest benefit of RDS is that it is much more cost-effective than VDIs.

Key Insights on Desktop Virtualization

The following section highlights how virtual desktops enhance business operations.

• Performance: Since virtual desktops are hosted on a centralized server, organizations have the option to quickly scale their resources and manage them better. Depending on organizational requirements, the desktops can be hosted on high-performance servers to handle computationally demanding tasks. By offloading the heavy lifting to virtual desktops and their high-performance servers, organizations can reduce the burden on individual devices, enhancing performance and scalability across the organization.
• Security: Desktop virtualization also provides considerable security measures to maintain data integrity and prevent system breaches. The centralized nature of the environment enables the organization to efficiently manage and consistently apply security updates and patches, reducing system vulnerability. As the data is stored on servers, loss or theft of individual devices does not compromise the integrity of organizational data. Organizations can also implement multi-factor authentication and encryption protocols to further tighten security. A reliable cloud service provider can help you manage and bolster your defenses against external attacks by leveraging their expertise to mitigate any risk to your virtual environment.
• Cost: Desktop virtualization offers significant benefits in terms of cost savings by reducing the dependency on hardware. With virtual desktops, organizations only need basic systems and a good internet connection to be able to perform any task, even those requiring high computational processing. It also makes setting up new offices much more cost-efficient by significantly reducing your hardware expenditure. Although setting up a VDI is quite expensive, the other alternatives, DaaS and RDS, are cost-efficient options. Regardless of which virtualization route you take, the long-term savings in hardware and administrative costs more than makeup for the initial setup costs.
• User Experience: A significant benefit of virtual desktops is the consistent interface provided to the users. Additionally, the ability to remotely access your desktop from anywhere improves flexibility. Employees can work from the comfort of their homes for better productivity, while organizations are not geographically restricted when they hire professionals.

Best Practices for Implementing Desktop Virtualization

Now that we have a better understanding of what desktop virtualization is and the advantages it brings to a business, let us look at how they must be implemented and the strategies you need to follow to make the most of them.

• Planning and Assessment: As with anything, thoroughly planning and assessing your organizational needs is the first step to successfully implementing desktop virtualization. Evaluate the existing IT environment, identify possible integrations or alternatives, and define the organizational goals to be met. Additional factors like the number of users and resource requirements should also be taken into consideration. By listing these requirements, you will gain a clearer understanding of which virtualization technique will suit your business and user needs.
• Choosing the Right Solution: Once you have identified your required specifications, you will have an easy time choosing between Daas, VDI, and RDS. To reiterate, DaaS offers enhanced flexibility and lower upfront costs, VDI offers superior control and customizability, and RDS offers a cost-efficient alternative for remote access.
• Infrastructure Considerations: Three factors that organizations need to carefully consider are network, storage, and server hardware. A high-speed, reliable internet connection ensures that data transmission is smooth and minimizes latency. Additionally, the storage must be scalable, and the server must be capable of handling the required computational tasks.
• Management and Monitoring: After implementing the virtualization solution, it is essential to regularly review the virtual environment. Organizations should implement tools and assign teams to monitor the system's health, performance metrics, and user activity. Monitoring your virtual environment ensures it works as intended and allows for flexible resource allocation based on user requirements. Robust management strategies that cover data breach events and other unforeseen disruptions should be created and implemented to ensure smooth operational functioning.