The pandemic spread of the coronavirus shows no signs of abating and organizations are aggressively looking for desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) solutions. This has spurred adoption of the Microsoft Azure cloud services, according to Microsoft. It states that there has been a 9X growth in its cloud services and significant adoption of Azure’s Windows Virtual Desktop solution in regions where shelter-in-place or social distancing orders have been enforced.
To tackle the challenges of the COVID-19 crisis, countless businesses are shifting to a work-from-home model for ensuring employee safety while maintaining business continuity. This has created new, rising demand for some remote-working solutions, such as the Windows Virtual Desktop by Microsoft Azure. Use of this virtual desktop solution has seen 3X growth until recently and is still counting.
How Companies Are Leveraging Windows Virtual Desktops to Support Remote Working
Organizations are adopting virtual desktop solutions such as Windows Virtual Desktops to enhance the process efficiency, experience, and productivity of their teams. Adoption of this DaaS solution has helped them save on the hardware refresh of distributed IT infrastructure. The solution is also helping companies reduce usage costs, as this DaaS solution is based on the pay-as-you-go model, enabling infrastructure availability during seasonal business spikes.
The pandemic coronavirus spread has led to consequences such as social distancing and lockdowns. In such times of crisis, companies are in need to implement cloud-based solutions that enable 24/7, remote access to data and applications. Implementation of Azure’s Windows Virtual Desktop solution is helping organizations in significantly enhancing end-user productivity, increasing mobility, and reducing power consumption. All this, while improving the end-user experience.
The Windows Virtual Desktop solution of Azure is a breakthrough implementation solution. This is enabling various organizations to empower their business growth through a robust remote workforce. This solution paves an avenue for process efficiency owing to its seamless integration with any legacy system.
Key Know-Hows of Azure’s Windows Virtual Desktop
Enable Multiple Users
Microsoft is looking to make a new Windows 10 version available, which will support multiple connected users. The Windows 10 OS will be made available for virtual desktops as well, enabling collaborative, simultaneous access for organizations to their systems. This is touted to be revolutionary as it will reduce the infrastructure cost by pulling users onto a more virtual infrastructure.
Reduced Licencing Complexity
The complexities involved in the licensing of virtual desktops is reduced dramatically. Whether it is an enterprise plan, an academic plan or a business plan, every one of them will include Windows Virtual Desktop at no additional cost, as the users won’t be charged for providing the services or for the operating system. The only thing that partners or customers need to provide is a subscription to Azure for running virtual machines.
Simplified Virtual Desktops
The Windows Virtual Desktops provided through Azure and managed by Microsoft enables free services to users who have license entitlements. This has simplified complexities of these desktops in the cloud. They have also reduced the amount of infrastructure (computing, storage and servers) needed for deploying virtual desktops. This further brings down the cost and offers convenience to the end-users.
High Potential for Adoption
Windows Virtual Desktops appeal to customers who never considered deploying such solutions previously while serving as a feasible solution. This points at a significant opportunity in the mass market, as virtual desktops are better alternatives to traditional systems for performing operations remotely. This further complements the remote workforce that every organization is trying to build as a dire requirement, thereby complementing the adoption of the solution.
Prospects for the Near Future
There are some trigger points that are driving the adoption of Windows Virtual Desktop. These include the inability of current providers to fulfil the need for remote working solutions and growing cybersecurity risks & issues raised by the cybersecurity providers. The pandemic COVID-19 spread has led businesses to be ready for a worst-case scenario. It shows that every organization requires a reliable remote working solution. Most businesses are either looking at testing or implementing solutions such as Windows Virtual Desktops in the upcoming months.
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