In Nilesh Goradia, Head, Pre-Sales, India Subcontinent, Citrix says the pattern of working has undergone a paradigm shift due to the advent of consumerisation of IT. As a result of this, work has moved beyond office premises, empowering employees to access business information from anywhere using their mobile devices.
This has initiated the concept of work shifting, moving work to the optimal place and time from within the office walls. However, work shifting increases risks and challenges for ensuring security and compliance of an organization. This necessitates a solution that could manage these risks effectively even while allowing BYOD, and desktop virtualization brings in exactly that.
Desktop virtualization is a technology that makes your desktop virtual, which means it is no more limited to the physical server it is on and can be accessed from anywhere. While employees have the need to experience a multitude of devices and form factors, IT is focused on security, efficiency, manageability and higher ROI. Desktop Virtualization fits as the apt technology that ties both these ends of the benefits spectrum.
The top 10 reasons to strengthen information security with desktop virtualization are:
- Support workplace flexibility , mobility and continuity:
Nowadays, workers are increasingly becoming mobile. Flexible work styles increases the productivity benefits while reducing real estate, travel and labour costs. Desktop virtualization allows centralized application and data management which enables IT to provide secure access to anyone, anywhere, at a moment's notice. - Reduction in power consumption and saves time:
Desktop Virtualization infrastructure eliminates the need for powerful processors, large hard drives for storage, and constant system updates and therefore consumes very less power. With thin clients, not only does this cost get cut down significantly, but it also enables organizations to contribute towards green computing and claim benefits for reducing carbon footprint. - Better manageability of endpoints:
With Desktop Virtualization, it is possible to bring standardization and increased operational efficiency with the use of thin clients. In the event of a device malfunction, another thin client can be provisioned and work can be continued immediately as no data is stored at the endpoint. - Bandwidth management & OS migration:
Desktop Virtualization reduces the bandwidth consumption significantly and thereby yields huge savings for organisations. Additionally the technology is capable of working on any type of network such as VSAT, MPLS etc.
With Desktop Virtualization, migration of operating systems can be done on the fly whereby updating the OS image at the data center will simultaneously get reflected on all endpoints. This strategy brings down the migration project cost drastically, along with the added benefits of increased operational efficiency.. - Application compatibility:
Since Desktop Virtualization also integrates technologies such as Application Virtualization; it is possible to run multiple versions of the same application in the same OS environment which is impossible in a physical PC scenario. - Prevent data loss, ensure privacy and protect intellectual property:
While giving access to corporate applications and data, IT needs to not only prevent data loss but also ensure confidentiality and compliance. By centralizing resources in the data center, desktop virtualization lets IT manage and secure Windows applications and associated data more simply and effectively in a single location, rather than thousands of different locations. - Empower contractors:
Businesses are increasingly using contractors, temps, consultants and outsourcing partners. This presents the security challenge when providing business information access to them and removing them once the engagement is over. The devices they use can also cause compatibility issues as IT can't be certain that their devices will be able to run all the necessary applications. Desktop virtualization solves both of these problems. - Increase the value of existing security investments:
Managing security for hundreds or thousands of endpoint devices is extremely challenging and resource-intensive, leading to inevitable delays and oversights. By centralizing maintenance, desktop virtualization simplifies and accelerates endpoint security. Patches, antivirus updates and hot fixes can be installed on a single master image, and then deployed almost instantly throughout the organization. - Minimize the impact of information security breaches:
No strategy can guarantee perfect information security in perpetuity. An essential part of risk management is being able to limit the damage when things go wrong. Centralized management enables IT to react quickly to a security breach or mis-configuration. If the integrity of a user is compromised, IT can quickly take down the user's profile and restore it to an uncompromised state by reverting to a golden image. - Get security out of the way of users:
Traditionally, users have been allowed to work in limited places, access minimal resources, rely on standard corporate equipment, sacrifice mobility and spend more and more time managing an array of security credentials. Desktop virtualization removes this road block where virtual applications are delivered on-demand anywhere they need to work, on the device of their choice.
Conclusion:
Desktop virtualization is thus one such one-stop solution, a natural technology evolution to deliver high value, high performance end-user computing that is simple to consume and optimized for operational efficiency, securely!
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