In the realm of end-user cloud computing, terms like ‘next-generation’ are frequently used to refer to the move away from outdated legacy virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) systems to a modern, cloud-first approach. By shifting toward a cloud-first architecture that combines on-premises and cloud environments, IT leaders can turn their traditionally costly legacy systems into a profit center.
However, the complexities associated with managing various public and private clouds can lead to challenges for IT when looking to implement a hybrid, multi-cloud approach. Not to mention the burden brought by persisting issues from older implementations as teams transition to the cloud. To turn this pain point into profit, CIOs and technology leaders must look at the limitations of their current end-user computing tech stack, the best strategy for their organization’s move to the cloud, and what contemporary strategies and solutions can provide the most benefits, including the economics of cost containment and contribution to profit.
The Limitations of Traditional, Non-Cloud Approaches
The issues associated with on-premises VDI have become increasingly evident. VDI is a powerful end-user computing solution that can meet the needs of a dispersed workforce, especially in regulated industries where security, compliance, and control are paramount; however, scalability, security across environments, and complex management have quickly risen as top challenges for IT teams, increasingly causing financial drain, mounting operational inefficiencies, and end-user dissatisfaction. Each of these contributing factors ultimately impact productivity and organizations’ bottom line.
Poor performance attached to the previously stated challenges can also cause lost productivity and constant frustration for VDI users. Overall, these are the costs that are not disclosed upfront when adopting a traditional VDI system. Those hidden costs, including lost productivity as well as potential downtime, can grow and accumulate over time. The combination of these “hidden” costs alongside maintenance and operational expenses can contribute to a misalignment of the IT team with the overarching goals of the organization. When thinking of the future of the enterprise, expansion of on-premises VDI systems can take months or even years – with the associated costs – impeding business agility, creating unnecessary disruption, and consuming the valuable time of end-users and IT teams alike.
A Cloud-First Strategy: Shift from Expense to Profit
Global end-user spending on public cloud services is projected to reach $725 billion in 2024. In this massively cloud-driven era, businesses must cautiously approach the adoption of end-user computing (EUC) solutions designed to take full advantage of the cloud today and tomorrow to ensure they meet their specific needs.
Cloud-first VDI systems can turn traditional IT expenses into cost optimization opportunities and take enterprises into the future. This true next-gen approach can:
Scale and deploy efficiently – Business requirements continuously shift. There may be new acquisitions that require integration or remote software engineers around the world hired for specific projects that need rapid onboarding. The right VDI solution is able to nimbly adapt to the dynamics of business to meet changes such as these quickly, with efficient deployment and scalability.
Provide 24×7 end-user observability – Uninterrupted IT operations are critical for minimizing downtime, maintaining consistency, ensuring reliability, streamlining troubleshooting, and enabling high performance for a consistently great end-user experience. To ensure there are no workflow disruptions, organizations should deploy EUC solutions that provide round-the-clock observability. Tools for comprehensive management, real-time incident alerts, in-product user feedback, and performance analysis should be considered to understand how applications and services are being used as well as when and where there are disruptions.
Gather comprehensive data – IT leaders and CIOs can benefit from these solutions as they can collect and analyze key performance metrics throughout the business. The integration of a system that enables real-time analysis and collection of extensive data sets from virtual desktop agents, gateways, endpoints, and various cloud platforms provides insights into critical performance data enables an IT team to offer top-level service that keeps end-users happy and engaged. This includes data around network conditions and CPU/memory usage, ensuring prompt real-time issue resolution across multiple clouds and regions, as well as extensive off-line analysis for planning and strategy which can include looming problem identification and resolution before end-users are ever affected. In these cases, proactive avoidance of disruption before it happens can equate to significant cost containment.
Reduce downtime periods: Continuous reliability must be at the top of mind for enterprises. For large organizations, a day of downtime can result in significant product loss – a million dollars per every thousand employees. Large financial services can see ever larger losses for just an hour of downtime – up to a million dollars lost per user. Modern, cloud-first VDI solutions are uniquely suited to minimize productivity loss. They can replicate a primary desktop to a secondary region when the primary region is unavailable. This can efficiently get users back up and running even if there may be disruption within the organization. With an ideal high-availability design, in many cases, end-users may never even realize there was a problem.
Empowering a Cloud-First Future
Adopting next-gen VDI in today’s cloud-centric world is a strategic decision that gives CIOs and IT executives the ability to turn traditional IT expenses into profitable opportunities to boost performance, end-user satisfaction and productivity with strong talent retention, and company growth.
Organizations choosing a modern hybrid multi-cloud VDI solution can maximize performance and cost efficiency in their IT infrastructure, improve end-user experiences, reduce downtime, increase productivity, and foster overall business agility and scalability. All in all, organizations that consider a cloud-native VDI approach can future-proof the enterprise and create a major competitive edge – all while significantly improving the bottom line.
