Todayâs businesses face more challenges than ever before. Whether itâs cybersecurity, the necessity to support remote work, or the ever-present demands to reduce IT costs, organizations are continually seeking ways to enhance productivity, streamline operations, and adapt to the dynamic needs of modern work environments.
The increasing popularity of virtual desktop and application software solutions offers a wide range of strengths and benefits that address these challenges. By leveraging virtualization technology, businesses can centralize management and provide greater flexibility for remote work employees to access critical resources from anywhere, at any time. Most importantly, for security purposes, virtualization technology ensures that no data remains on end-user devices.
Successful deployment, however, requires careful planning and strategic execution. By following some best practices for implementing virtual desktop solutions, you can ensure maximum return on investment and a pleasing user experience that drives advocacy and adoption.
Top 10 Best Practices for Implementing Virtual Desktop Solutions
Let’s take a look at some best practices for implementing virtual desktop solutions and ensure a smooth integration within your organization:
1. Assess Your Requirements
Before diving into implementation, conduct a thorough assessment of your organization’s needs, including user requirements, existing infrastructure, and application compatibility. This step is crucial for identifying the most suitable virtualization solution and crafting a deployment strategy tailored to your specific business objectives. For example, some organizations require support for Windows and Linux desktops and applications. Others may prioritize performance and accessibility on a wide range of non-Windows devices. You may have graphic-intensive applications or certain USB devices that will not work on all platforms. Identifying and prioritizing the most essential requirements (vs. those that are nice to have but not critical to success) will help you focus on identifying the right solution. It will also prevent you from overpaying for âbells and whistlesâ features that donât add value and, in fact, make solutions unwieldy to administer while adding unnecessary costs.
2. Select the Right Technology
With numerous virtualization platforms available, selecting the appropriate technology is the key to a successful project. Whether opting for hosted virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), desktop as a service (DaaS), or application virtualization, consider factors such as scalability, performance, cost-effectiveness, and integration capabilities.
3. Design a Scalable Architecture
Designing a scalable architecture ensures that your virtual desktop and application environment can accommodate future growth and evolving demands. Implementing redundant components, load balancing mechanisms, and scalable storage solutions will help maintain optimal performance and minimize downtime. At the same time, however, selecting solutions that are modern in design and offer low overhead architecture, like Inuvikaâs OVD Enterprise, for example, gives you tremendous flexibility if you are deploying on-site as well as accessing it as a service.
4. Prioritize Security
Security must be a top priority when implementing virtual desktops and applications. Employ robust authentication mechanisms, encryption protocols, and access controls to safeguard sensitive data and mitigate potential security threats. Regular security audits and updates are essential to stay ahead of emerging risks. This is particularly important if your employees or contractors work remotely. Accessing resources via a virtualized desktop or application environment provides performance and security-related advantages compared to, for example, a conventional VPN. As a result, youâll want to revisit points #1 and #2 to ensure that youâre sourcing a solution that can provide comprehensive security coverage. OVD Enterprise, for example, includes advanced security standards like encryption and multi-factor authentication while also including a secure remote access gateway as part of the solution right out of the box. This is far more secure than a VPN that can provide access to your entire environment through a single mistake by an employee. OVD Enterprise sandboxes each user so that there can be no access beyond what is granted to that user.
5. Optimize the User Experience
User experience plays a significant role in the success of virtualization initiatives. Itâs also an issue that has historically plagued users and administrators of conventional virtual desktop solutions like Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops and VMware Horizon. Chances are, youâll want to ensure seamless access to virtual desktops and applications across various devices and network conditions, including browser-based access and dedicated clients for platforms like Mac, Android, and even thin clients. Youâll also want the experience to be fast, reliable, and pleasing in order to build user acceptance and maximize compliance. After all, what value will a solution be that suffers from long log-in times, frozen sessions, and potential loss of work? Implement performance monitoring tools to identify and address any bottlenecks that may impact user productivity.
6. Training
Transitioning to a virtualized environment may require employees to adapt to new workflows and tools. Provide comprehensive training and support resources to familiarize users with the virtual desktop interface, application access methods, and best practices for optimizing performance and productivity. âComprehensiveâ doesnât mean that it has to be expensive or time-consuming. Solutions like OVD Enterprise offer an intuitive experience that is easy for end-users to use and easy for administrators to manage. By identifying the most essential aspects for users to understand, you can plan and create support/learning resources that are minimally invasive and inexpensive to implement.
7. Implement a Backup and Disaster Recovery Strategy
Implementing robust backup and disaster recovery solutions is critical to safeguarding business continuity and data integrity. Todayâs threats to data loss range from malicious external threats, like ransomware attacks, to unintentional errors made by internal users. Both can lead to catastrophic downtime if your data is not backed up and recoverable.  Regularly back up virtual desktop images, application data, and configuration settings to minimize the risk of data loss in the event of hardware failures, system crashes, or cyberattacks. This often requires a reliable third-party solution that you may already use to protect existing data sources like file and application servers.
8. Establish and Monitor Performance Metrics
Continuous monitoring of performance metrics and resource utilization is essential for optimizing the efficiency and scalability of your virtual desktop environment. Identify potential performance bottlenecks, resource constraints, or underutilized assets, and take proactive measures to optimize performance and resource allocation.
9. Updates and Maintenance
If you choose to run your solution on-site, virtual desktop and application infrastructure require regular updates, patches, and maintenance to ensure optimal performance, security, and compatibility with evolving technologies. Establish a schedule for routine maintenance tasks, software updates, and security patches to keep your virtual environment running smoothly and securely. Alternatively, leading solution providers will often offer their solution as a service. In that instance, you simply tap into the service while the service vendor is responsible for updates and maintenance. Youâll also benefit from having the most current version of the software throughout the life of your service subscription.
10. Evaluate Your Progress
Finally, periodically evaluate the effectiveness of your virtual desktop and application implementation against defined objectives and performance benchmarks. Solicit feedback from users and stakeholders to identify areas for improvement and adaptation. Continuously refine your virtualization strategy to align with changing business requirements and technological advancements.
Why Inuvika OVD Enterprise is the Best Virtualized Desktop and Application Solution for Business
- OVD Enterprise is a cost-effective solution for delivering virtualized applications and desktops without the cost and complexity of competitors like Citrix and VMware.
- OVD is sold as a simple, all-inclusive subscription that offers a total TCO reduction of up to 58% vs Citrix pricing. It is available both as an on-site solution, or as-a-service. All product updates are supplied during the term of the subscription and are included in the subscription costs.
- OVD offers a flexible, modern design that deploys in as little as 30 minutes, reduces management complexity for administrators, and provides a fast and intuitive experience for end users.
- With OVD Enterprise, IT departments can offer Windows and Linux applications on a single platform to a wide range of devices, from desktops to Chromebooks to Raspberry Pi thin clients, as well as through HTML5 Web browsers.
- OVD offers outstanding performance and reliability that makes service delivery a breeze. Users can depend on the service without the threat of losing data should a major outage occur.
- Secure by design, OVD is built on the principle of Zero Trust. Features like multi-factor authentication, granular user access control, and advanced encryption are included in your subscription. It even includes a secure remote access gateway without the need to monitor usage in order to manage extra costs. So, there is no need for an additional product like Citrix NetScaler.
- Built on Linux, OVD will require fewer Windows server licenses and no SQL Server license at all.
- Inuvika consistently receives outstanding support awards from review sites like Gartner Digital Market, SourceForge, Slashdot, and Crozdesk.
In conclusion, following best practices for implementing virtual desktop solutions like OVD Enterprise offers numerous benefits for organizations seeking to enhance productivity, flexibility, and security in today’s digital age. By following these best practices and guidelines, businesses can maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of their virtualization initiatives, empowering employees to work more effectively and securely in an increasingly interconnected world.
More Information
>> Why OVD Enterprise is the best Citrix alternative
>>Looking for a Less Costly Alternative to Citrix and VMware? Meet Inuvika
>> How Virtual Desktop Environments are Redefining Application Delivery