How to Select the Right Cloud PC Solution to Modernize VDI

Whether you’re ready to modernize VDI because of its high cost and complexity, or you’re replacing physical PCs to bring stronger security and greater agility to your organization, Cloud PCs and workstations are the right way to go. You have several solution choices, and you need to make sure the solution you select meets your strategic goals.  In this blog we offer key questions you’ll need to consider – I hope you find this helpful.  We’ve also created a checklist for your solution architects that includes more than 70 tough questions to ask virtual desktop vendors as you go through your technical due diligence. You can also schedule a demo and see our SaaS Cloud PC platform in action.

Does the Cloud PC solution support a multi-cloud strategy?

Some Cloud PC solutions are confined to a single cloud, which may be fine for smaller companies. Workspot supports the multi-cloud strategy that most enterprise organizations have today, enabling greater agility and mitigating business disruption risk. Unlike any other solution, our innovative Desktop Control Fabric™ extends across multiple public clouds into any cloud region, providing greater reliability, fortifying your business continuity plan as well as delivering outstanding performance end users love.

Will the Cloud PC solution meet your enterprise requirements?

Most Cloud PC solutions will meet the needs of smaller companies that don’t have complex requirements for security or specific needs for management tools. On the other hand, most large enterprises have specific requirements for supporting their security stack and existing PC management tools, and asking them to change is too burdensome. They likely also need to customize their Windows 10/11 images, a capability not offered by some vendors.

Workspot Cloud PCs are completely customizable, and our Customer Success Team helps you ensure your enterprise requirements are met throughout the life of your Cloud PC implementation.

Will the Cloud PC solution pass your security audit?

Workspot made a fundamental architecture design decision to separate the control and data planes. This is a unique feature of our solution – no other vendor has this separation, and that has significant implications for the security of your Cloud PCs. What this means is that the Workspot Cloud PC solution is outside the purview of your security and compliance audits, because Workspot never encounters your corporate data. Other solutions have a shared, regional control and data plane, which is subject to such audits, because your data flows through their control plane. Additionally, while Workspot supports the security and MFA technology decisions you’ve already carefully made, other vendors require you to use their proprietary security products.

What does it take to get to production? Do you have the resources to perform this work?

You have a significant decision to make up-front about the best approach for modernizing VDI and replacing physical PCs. Do you have the skill sets and the time in-house to implement and manage a do-it-yourself (DIY) solution? You will still need to manage the infrastructure (even though it’s in the cloud!) and you still own the desktop SLA. Reliability is all on you. You could employ consultants to help you but that adds to your costs, both for deployment and ongoing management. Other DIY Cloud PC solutions are self-service. They may be fairly simple to deploy, but they are not customizable to meet enterprise needs, and you’re on your own to get support from a knowledgebase or from community help. any way you look at it, the DIY approach is resource-intensive for you.

Alternatively, our SaaS Cloud PC platform does all the heavy lifting for you. Our Customer Success Team gets to know your organization and your requirements, and they help you achieve your goals. We can have you up and running in days depending on your readiness, and we stay with you during every step of the deployment process and beyond.

Are you able to align cost with expectations? Do you have the resources to manage Cloud PC-related costs?

Of course, the cost of the Cloud PC solution is a huge consideration. There are DIY solutions that may seem attractively priced, but when you start adding in the cost of the consultants or employees required to deploy the solution and then manage it ongoing, plus third party products and tools to meet your requirements, the costs add up quickly. Another consideration is the pricing model for your Cloud PCs. Does the vendor provide flexibility here?

Workspot’s SaaS Cloud PC platform simplifies all of this. There are no consultants required, because there’s no complex infrastructure for you to contend with. We manage the SaaS platform, while you stay in complete control of your Cloud PCs. Plus, when you think about it, the various use cases you need to support all have different characteristics. Can the vendor offer both persistent and non-persistent Cloud PCs? Do they offer flexible pricing models to suit each use case? For example, a knowledge worker use case in which the user is active 40 or 50 hours per week is very different than the usage profile of a call center worker. One may benefit from a persistent desktop and flat-rate pricing while the other may benefit most from a non-persistent desktop and an hourly consumption-based pricing model. Will you have this flexibility to control costs?

Are you able to keep the Cloud PC service reliable?

With a DIY approach to Cloud PCs, the vendor provides an SLA for the virtual desktop broker. That’s it. The reliability of the overall Cloud PC solution and the day-to-day availability of the Cloud PCs for your users is your responsibility. This is where the complexity of DIY solutions gets you in trouble. It’s resource-intensive to stay on top of all the changes your cloud provider makes and modify your implementation accordingly, stay on top of infrastructure upgrades, and troubleshoot user issues. Are you prepared to allocate resources to this?

Workspot takes care of all of this for you. That’s the beauty of SaaS. We own the entire desktop SLA. The reliability of your Cloud PCs is our responsibility; your team doesn’t have to deal with troubleshooting, upgrades, or managing infrastructure. Our industry-leading 99.95% SLA speaks for itself.

Who can you call to troubleshoot a problem? Do you have the resources to interface with multiple vendors and internal departments to chase down the solution?

Troubleshooting complex infrastructure is time consuming and therefore, expensive. Complexity is one of the reasons you’ve decided to modernize VDI, so why would it be acceptable in a Cloud PC solution? With some solutions, you’ll need third party products. When an issue arises, who do you call? And how much downtime is acceptable while you sort out the root of the problem? Navigating multiple internal departments and vendors is not easy or fast.

With Workspot, if a problem arises, you contact us first. Our solution is instrumented throughout for 24×7 monitoring, allowing us to visualize problems and address them quickly. Even if the problem you’ve encountered is with your cloud provider, or perhaps an operating system upgrade has introduced an issue, we can often identify that and help you navigate a resolution with the vendor.

We believe enterprises need flexibility and choice to meet their stringent end user computing requirements and keep up with an ever-changing business environment. The Workspot SaaS Cloud PC platform modernizes VDI and brings new levels of agility to your organization so you can respond to whatever the future holds.

Ready to learn more? Schedule a demo and let’s talk about how Cloud PCs can meet your requirements.