Tech Tip: Virtualized Workstations May Be Your Next Step
By • July 25, 2022 0 1261
Virtualizing your business’ software is pretty much just keeping it in an online environment, as compared to your own network infrastructure. This means that it lives in the cloud, delivered to you through the Internet. This approach has proved fortuitous for a great many businesses, so it only stands to reason that virtualizing hardware is a reasonable next step.
Let’s consider how virtual workstations can deliver considerable benefits to your productivity and efficiency.
What Does it Mean to Virtualize a Workstation?
While virtualizing software, the application is stored on a centralized infrastructure—managed either by a business’ internal IT department or a third-party provider. Workstation/desktop virtualization is the same thing, but applied to your business’ desktop infrastructure. Your employees will have access to their workplace desktops and any applications on them, so long as they have an Internet connection and a secure and approved endpoint to use.
Virtual machines can be seen as an example of this in action, as they can be used to host various operating systems and desktops on a single device. However, we want to keep the focus on desktop-as-a-service and how they benefit businesses.
What Are Some Benefits of Virtualized Desktops?
While there are a few advantages virtual desktops offer, one of the major ones we should address is the boost they provide to your security. As the endpoint doesn’t have any data stored on it itself, with it all saved in a centralized location, it becomes much more difficult for a threat to put your data at risk.
On a related note, this inherent security makes a virtual desktop the perfect place to put isolated versions of your operating systems or to test different applications. If you’ve ever wanted to evaluate how a new application will impact your computing environment, or if a patch or update will have any unwanted impacts, a virtual desktop gives you a safe place to check it. These environments can also be used to run legacy applications safely squirreled away in secure isolation.
Virtual desktops also give businesses the opportunity to help reduce their costs — particularly since almost all of the computing-intensive processing is handled at the data center level, so there’s some reduction on your operational costs right there.
Put Virtual Workstations in Place at Your Business!
Reach out to us for assistance in setting up your virtual workstations. To learn more, call Computerware today at (703) 821-8200 or go to: https://www.cwit.com/blog.
Alan Edwards, CISM, is chief information officer at Computerware, Inc., in Vienna, Virginia.
