If the last year has taught us anything, it’s that businesses must be adaptable. Office spaces need to be dynamic, and employees desire flexibility. It sounds simple enough — and it can be, as long as you have a system in place that can emulate onsite workspaces while protecting company data.
There are undoubtedly several Desktop as a Service (DaaS) products available, but as you’re combing through options and providers, it’s critical to choose one that:
- Simplifies access
- Supports heavy workloads
- Offers top-level security (especially if your company is okay with BYOD — Bring Your Own Device practices)
While Azure Virtual Desktop (formerly known as Windows Virtual Desktop) isn’t new, its brilliance is becoming increasingly recognized as more businesses turn to it. It’s a great solution to enable employees to work from home when they need to, yes, but it offers so much more than mere convenience or practicality. It can:
- Secure access to company resources from employees’ own unmanaged devices
- Run programs inexpensively from your devices, like thin clients, Chromebooks, and NUCs
- Reduce unused processing power based on the user’s and team’s needs
- Create virtual workspaces securely with Azure Virtual Desktop and Azure NAT Gateway
- Provide more scalability for crisis events
- Offer support in case of disaster recovery
Optimize Your Virtual Workspace
AVD provides employees with the same experience as a local desktop, whether it’s managing their inbox with Outlook, accessing company files on OneDrive, or collaborating with colleagues on Microsoft Teams meetings. The solution is pretty straightforward. They just need to sign in to Azure Virtual Desktop, and access company files the same way they would inside the office on a managed device.
It’s the only virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) that delivers simplified management, multi-session Windows 10, optimizations for Office 365 ProPlus, and support for Remote Desktop Services (RDS) environments. It can run heavy programs regardless of whether you’re using GPU-intensive design software or multiple applications. IT admins can deploy and scale Windows desktops and apps on Azure in minutes and get built-in security and compliance features.
Reduce Costs and Infrastructure
Azure Virtual Desktop can increase business agility and scalability without additional license costs. Azure Virtual Desktop is a free service and can be used with your existing Microsoft 365 or Windows per-user license.
Infrastructure costs can also be reduced by right-sizing VMs and shutting down VMs in use. Increase utilization of VMs with Windows 10 multi-session. Avoid upfront costs and align operational expenses to business usage. Reduce management overhead by moving all of your VDI into a managed service in the cloud.
Protect Data With Built-In Security Features
You can now protect all of your employee and company data in Azure instead of local desktops. Azure Virtual Desktop has many built-in security controls, including multi-factor authentication and role-based access control (RBAC). It offers:
- Enterprise-level cloud identity governance that enables you to manage access, secure endpoints, and identify potential threats
- Network security by isolating your Azure virtual machines and data from undesirable traffic and users while employees securely connect to an on-premise datacenter
- Technology safeguards such as encryption to keep your data safe
- Continuous monitoring and analysis of traffic help to reveal anomalies and threats
It’s also noteworthy that Microsoft invests more than $1 billion annually in cybersecurity research and development. They also employ more than 3,500 security experts wholly dedicated to your data security and privacy. For more information, check out this infographic on why you should trust AVD or this guide about security and AVD.
There’s no need to worry about company data being compromised — you’re in good hands!
Learn More About Azure Virtual Desktop
Azure Virtual Desktop on modern devices helps meet increasingly complex business and security requirements across industries, employee roles, and work environments.
To learn more about AVD, you can take a look at this paper on the reasons why you should choose Azure Virtual Desktop, or contact us directly.
