Last updated on August 25, 2022
What is a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure?
A virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) can either be persistent or non-persistent. So what is VDI? It is the technology used to create a virtualized desktop environment on a remote server setup. Virtualization software, called a hypervisor, is installed on a central server, creating the virtual desktops distributed to users and accessed from their devices. As to persistent vs. non-persistent VDI, the former is customized so that the user can log in to the same desktop each time, while non-persistent VDI reverts desktops to their initial state after logout. In this article, we will look at VDI use cases and benefits, its differences from desktop virtualization, how to implement VDI and the challenges in implementation, and how to streamline your VDI with Parallels® Remote Application Server (RAS).
VDI Use Cases
VDI is ideal for the following use cases:
- Users who work on desktops located in a central site. Mobile workers who work from various locations may be evaluated individually, together with roaming users who work locally and remotely.
- Users who work with a limited number of applications, such as call center agents, as do users sharing common resources, such as kiosk workers.
- Knowledge workers who work with a large set of specialized applications, such as analysts and accountants
- Power users who need administrative rights over their desktops, including developers and graphics artists.
- Contractors, especially for short-term projects, since you do not need to acquire new hardware for them.
- Organizations with Bring your own device (BYOD) programs,
- Highly regulated industries such as healthcare and financial services, and those with strict security requirements such as the defense industry and the military.
The Benefits of a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
The many benefits of VDI include:
- Portability: Since VDI decouples the desktop from the hardware, users can work from anywhere using any device, including tablets and mobile phones.
- Cost efficiency: Most VDI involves server-based processing, thus lowering your costs for hardware refreshes and device maintenance.
- Better security: With VDI, users do not have to store sensitive company data on their devices. Personal apps remain on endpoint devices and do not get mixed in with enterprise apps.
- Effective compliance: Since data is stored on company servers, VDI makes it easy to comply with federal government regulations in the US, or for companies operating in Europe, the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), for example.
- Better IT management: With VDI, there is no need for manual system configuration, making it easier for your IT team to deploy desktops across your organization.
- Higher-performing datacenters with varied capabilities: By outsourcing your datacenter requirements, you can leverage the advanced features typical of services from the more popular cloud providers.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure vs. Desktop Virtualization
At the start of every year for the past few years, IT analysts predicted it would be the year of VDI. According to an August 2021 report, the VDI market will reach $30 billion by 2026, up from 11.7 billion in 2020.
Organizations are shifting towards VDI due to lower IT costs, centralized management of the IT infrastructure, and the flexibility of allowing employees to access applications and desktops from any device, anywhere. Moreover, user experience is improving with better GPU availability and enhanced functionality.
According to the End User Computing – State of the Union survey, VDI environments with 100K concurrent users have increased from 0.6% in 2018 to 27% in 2021.
VDI no longer requires big budgets, time, and dedicated resources – changes have made it possible for organizations to spend less time, effort, and money setting up the infrastructure.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Implementation
At the start of every year for the past few years, IT analysts have predicted it would be the year of VDI – which it appears 2019 is! According to new data, more companies are considering VDI projects than ever before in 2019 (source: TechTarget).
Organizations are shifting towards VDI due to lower IT costs, centralized management of the IT infrastructure, and the flexibility of allowing employees to access applications and desktops from any device, anywhere. Moreover, user experience is improving with better GPU availability and enhanced functionality.
According to the End User Computing – State of the Union survey, VDI is also gaining ground because of an increased focus on security. Centralized management (22.79%) is the most important reason to use VDI. In addition, VDI environments with 100K concurrent users have increased from 0.6% in 2018 to 2.2% in 2019.
VDI no longer requires big budgets, time, and dedicated resources – changes have made it possible for organizations to spend less time, effort, and money setting up the infrastructure.
The Challenges of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
When setting up your VDI, your IT team may encounter the following challenges:
- Difficulties in assessing network performance levels. When numerous concurrent users are logged on to your network, performance may suffer.
- While VDI reduces expenses on client-side hardware, the overall management of the infrastructure can become expensive. Virtual desktops must be delivered in batches to avoid wasting resources.
- Find ways to optimize the infrastructure to cut costs while delivering high performance to the most demanding users. The flexibility to use popular hypervisors is another requirement.
- Provide training to ensure that users adapt to the VDI with minimal issues. If there are any changes to the VDI, provide advance notice and additional training, if necessary, to avoid potential issues.
- While VDI is inherently more secure, users using insecure connections to access their desktops could open your network to security vulnerabilities. Thus, security best practices, such as regular maintenance patches and security scans, are still required.
- Businesses have to optimize the infrastructure to cut costs; however, delivering high performance to the most demanding users is crucial. The flexibility to use popular hypervisors with Windows RDS is another requirement.
Parallels RAS Supports Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
Parallels® RAS provides a centralized management platform to monitor and manage virtual desktop infrastructure networks effortlessly. It provides the flexibility to use both RDS and VDI infrastructures, leveraging the major hypervisors available on the market. Parallels RAS supports Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware ESXi, and hyperconverged infrastructures such as Nutanix Acropolis, Scale Computing HC3, and HPE.
Parallels RAS is a vendor-independent tool that delivers highly scalable solutions with the same interface and features, regardless of the technology used. Moreover, it automatically generates VMs using customized templates. While it saves administration time, user demand is also effortlessly managed.
Applications and security updates can be automatically completed on a group of virtual desktops by simply updating the master (or golden) image, saving time, and reducing complexity and repetitive tasks. Parallels RAS is easy to use, manage, and maintain – it is an affordable solution that delivers virtual desktops and applications effectively.
Download your 30-day trial of Parallels RAS today!
