Over 69% of companies have claimed they’re planning to adopt a hybrid work model. That means more contractors and employees will need a means to work from remote locations. While traditional virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) offers some solutions to this issue, it’s not enough. That’s where cloud VDI comes to the rescue.
Dive into this guide to cloud VDI. Learn about the differences between traditional VDI and its cloud counterpart. Moreover, discover the benefits of using cloud VDI and how it can be one of the best investments for your organization.
What Is VDI?
A VDI is when a company manages applications and desktop environments from a central server and deploys them to end-users on request. These virtual desktops allow employees, contractors, and other partners to access applications inside and within a commercial space. Traditional VDI environments are usually located in an on-site data center & managed by the organization’s IT administrators and staff.
You can use virtualization solutions to create virtual machines (VMs). That is where you’ll host your virtual applications. When using virtual desktop infrastructure, your organization will run multiple operating systems and applications from a physical server in a data operating center.
What Is Cloud VDI and DaaS?
Cloud VDI, or Desktop as a Service (DaaS), is a form of VDI that is a fully outsourced solution hosted in the cloud. It provides virtual desktops to organizations and offers many more opportunities than traditional virtual desktop infrastructure. DaaS runs on various operating systems that give you more access to your organization’s virtual machines.
Traditional VDI solutions require significant Capital Expense (CapEx), whereas a DaaS solution turns CapEx into an Operating Expense (OpEx). Instead of paying for physical equipment, the IT staff to manage your traditional VDI infrastructure, and resource investments when you want to scale, you just pay for either a per-use or subscription basis with a DaaS solution.
You can find cloud VDI providers under a couple of categories. First, you have third-party solutions that generally tailor their services for your needs. You also have first-party solutions like Amazon Web Services or IBM Cloud, which enable you to customize your approach to managing your VDI.
Differences Between Traditional VDI and Cloud VDI (DaaS)
The main differences between traditional VDI and Cloud VDI is mainly in management, ownership, and maintenance needs. Moreover, Cloud VDI focuses on multi-tenant models, whereas VDI focuses on single-tenants. This means that VDI focuses resources on a single organization or user, whereas Cloud VDIs dynamically share resources throughout different data centers.
Also, with Cloud VDIs you fully outsource your services on consumption or subscription basis, which makes scaling significantly easier and reduces operating expenses.
When Would You Use Cloud VDI (DaaS)?
There are many use cases for cloud VDIs. However, the following situations and organizations will benefit the most from using DaaS over VDI:
- Improve data compliance and security: outsourcing can offer robust protection like end-to-end data encryption, which is one of the best ways to secure data
- Merger and Acquisition: Easily scale with company growth without huge capital expenses.
- Temporary workforce: creates a secure environment where contractors or temporary workforce can log in and begin working quickly
- Work from home (WFH) employees: cloud VDIs provide various applications that WFH employees can utilize.
5 Benefits of Using a Cloud VDI
While there are more benefits to using cloud virtual desktop infrastructure than we listed, the following are the most noteworthy perks you’ll find when choosing cloud VDI over traditional VDI:
1. Easily Scalable
When using traditional virtual desktop infrastructures, you must manually increase the number of desktops and allocate the resources yourself if you want to expand. However, when using DaaS, you can increase or decrease resources when needed.
If, for instance, you want to increase your database’s available RAM, instead of deploying more hardware, you could simply contact your cloud VDI provider, and they can quickly and easily handle the upgrade via the cloud.
2. Reduces Costs and Workload
You save money when not dealing with wasted resources, and you don’t need to pay additional expenses to deploy software or hardware whenever you want to scale. However, there are more ways switching to cloud VDI saves money.
When dealing with your VMs virtually, you cut expenses related to physical infrastructure—whether the costs are associated with purchasing new equipment or maintaining existing devices. Another reason for using cloud VDI over traditional VDI is that a specialist can access your applications anywhere. That way, you won’t have to pay for airfare and other travel expenses.
3. Robust Security Options
Rather than storing valuable data on devices within your facility, applications and other vital data will live on the various servers your DaaS host provides. Having data that doesn’t live on devices within your facility means that if someone steals a device, your business’ data won’t be compromised.
Also, most cloud VDI services offer protocols like Transport Layer Security (TLS), which uses an algorithm to secure transmitted data. The symmetric-key encryption guarantees safe files and password protection.
4. Ease of Access
With traditional virtual desktop infrastructure, it’s often harder to access applications since most of the time, you will have to access data from a single location. However, with cloud VDI, you can access virtual desktops from anywhere.
With the ability to log into applications from anywhere, you can have staff, contractors, or partners from anywhere around the globe log in and perform tasks or troubleshoot.
5. Continuous Backups
Cloud VDI services will maintain backups of your data throughout various physical locations. These operations will provide you with the most safety possible in the event of a disaster at one location.
Also, due to the service’s resources, you can restore your backups immediately, which means you will have less downtime for your products.
Take the Next Step Toward Using Cloud VDI
Traditional virtual desktop infrastructure offers plenty of benefits. However, if you want scalability, cost savings, and additional accessibility, cloud VDI is the best choice for your organization. Now that you have a better idea of the benefits of using a cloud virtual desktop infrastructure, you will need to find a correct solution.
Go with the Desktop as a Service solution that’s scalable, secure, and simple to use. The DesktopReady DaaS solution is an all-in-one turnkey solution for all your VDI needs.
Schedule a free consultation and try our cloud VDI virtual desktop solution today!
