The key factors in planning a virtual desktop infrastructure

Virtual desktop infrastructure has various names cited by Intel – such as hosted desktop infrastructure, workstation remoting or simply desktop virtualisation. Whatever you call it, VDI – as we will commonly call it in this article – can bring an array of benefits to your company’s workforce.

Those benefits include the greater ease of working on the go and accessing Windows on a broader range of devices. However, there remain some factors to consider carefully while readying a VDI.

What is the makeup of your current desktop environment?

You could put together a complete inventory of this environment before proceeding with putting a VDI plan into action. You should particularly take account of which CPUs, apps, RAM and storage are currently being used by workers in the existing desktop environment.

Otherwise, you could struggle to source suitable technology, Network Computing cautions. It is both the type and amounts of technology that you must carefully mull over.

How much space will you need?

We have already somewhat touched upon this subject; however, it is worth thinking in more detail about what your storage requirements might be.

For example, to what extent will spinning disks or flash storage hold the data? Will many users initiate VDI sessions simultaneously, triggering what ITPro calls a “boot storm”? The site warns that a boot storm could cripple an insufficiently-prepared storage area network, so be careful.

How will you maintain stringent security?

You certainly shouldn’t skimp on the anti-virus protection as your VDI is put in place. For virtual machines that are locked down and receive little input from users, a rudimentary security solution might suffice. However, more commonly-used VMs could benefit from more sophisticated controls.

Those could include granular security measures like intrusion prevention services, intrusion detection services and data loss prevention. Such systems could stop, for example, Social Security numbers leaking, as they could halt the internal transfer of these numbers in violation of protocol.

How will you tightly control your BYOD policy?

Bring-your-own-device – as BYOD stands for – policies are great for enabling businesses to tap into the functionality of devices which their workers already have. Since most people have a smartphone these days, moving to a Cloud hosted PBX system is a simple and effective way to incorporate a BYOD policy.

VDI can especially come into its own with a BYOD policy. However, to prevent your VDI becoming overly stretched due to struggling to handle devices of too many different types, you could limit the types of devices your BYOD policy supports – and remember to supply a list indicating such.

How will you cultivate a pleasing experience for users?

Fail to do this and, of course, those users’ productivity could be unduly compromised. Hence, you ought to be careful about how users profiles are set up and managed, applications are delivered and – obviously crucial for evaluation purposes – user performance is monitored.

Therefore, it should come as a relief that a cloud migration company can help you implement a VDI that various workers will easily be able to use. You can read about how RedPixie has recently enabled a European rating agency to tick many boxes on a VDI checklist.