Is 2020 the Year of the Cloud Desktop?
If Workspot’s growth in 2019 is any indication, the answer is a resounding “Yes!” Our blog series, “Conversations with Customers”, lays out the reasons why organizations of all sizes are moving desktop workloads to the cloud. We hear similar themes across all of our customers: The need to simplify IT, rectify the cost, complexity and performance issues of legacy VDI, strengthen security and business continuity plans, and position the business for accelerated growth through greater agility. We believe that 2020 is the year of the cloud desktop. Here’s why.
There’s no doubt that technology has improved both our personal and professional productivity. In a recent survey by ESG research, 83% of respondents agreed. Mark Bowker, Senior Analyst at ESG, recently published a report entitled “Top Ten Accelerants of Cloud-hosted desktops in 2020,” in which he describes the opportunities that come with adopting cloud desktops. Each of the 10 “accelerants” Mark describes can be bucketed into the primary themes we hear from our customers. Essentially, we could not agree more with Mark’s conclusions, because they reflect exactly what our customers are telling us.
Simplify IT
IT teams only have so much time and energy to go around, so their efforts need to be directed in a way that is of strategic value to the business. Conducting a PC refresh every few years, and keeping the lights on in an on-premises data center pretty much don’t qualify as strategic contributions. That’s not just our opinion. It’s examples like these, where there is a much more efficient path, that is driving the cloud-first initiatives that are so commonplace today. If someone else can do the job better, faster and cheaper, you should probably make that change, right? Similarly, micro-managing legacy VDI or the cloud-hosted version of VDI, where you still have to deal with infrastructure, upgrades, and SLAs, is pretty archaic at this point. To achieve true IT simplification, you’ll need to look for a cloud desktop solution that does the heavy lifting for you. That’s where Workspot’s turnkey cloud desktop SaaS solution comes in. There’s nothing else like it. Take a closer look to see why 2020 should the year of the cloud desktop for your organization Here’s one customer’s story where IT simplicity was top of mind.
Righting the Wrongs of Legacy VDI
It’s an old refrain, but a powerful change catalyst nonetheless: Legacy VDI is causing problems for many customers. It’s expensive, it’s complex to manage, and end-users often experience poor performance, which impacts productivity. In the ESG report, Mark notes that while VDI has worked in certain use cases for a limited number of users, the difficulty arises when it’s time to scale the deployment. We believe that perpetuating that complexity and poor user experience makes zero sense because the right cloud desktop solution solves those problems. With Workspot, even the most demanding users, such as CAD engineers, discover that their Workspot cloud workstations perform as well or better than their local, physical workstation – and it frees them to work from anywhere. This customer recently made the switch from legacy VDI to cloud desktops. A key decision-maker on the IT team had years of experience with both on-prem and hosted virtual desktop solutions, and once they saw what was possible with Workspot, there was no question that cloud desktops were the way to go to meet their performance and flexibility needs.
Trust No One; Plan for the Worst
It sounds fatalistic, but in the words of former Intel CEO Andy Grove, “only the paranoid survive.” Zero Trust security and effective disaster recovery are top-of-mind for CIOs because the consequences of a breach or extended downtime due to a disaster can literally result in the business shutting down, or irreparable damage to brand reputation. In the ESG report, Mark discusses how cloud desktops deliver greater security by keeping data off endpoints and by taking advantage of broad and deep threat intelligence offered by the public cloud providers. Truly, there are few in-house IT teams that can accomplish this level of security. However, we need to take the security conversation further. There is only one cloud desktop solution in the Universe that is uniquely architected for Zero Trust Security, and that’s Workspot. This is an absolutely critical conversation to have with any cloud desktop vendor you are considering. We made an architecture decision to separate the control and data planes. This means that the management elements of the cloud desktop solution are completely separate from your data. This is really important to understand: If the control and data planes are not separate, then your data and authentication systems traverse the same system. Your data is potentially co-mingled with other customers’ data, and when it passes through the control plane, the cloud desktop vendor can access it! And that means you cannot achieve Zero Trust Security. We talked about this in more depth in our blog, “Top 3 Cloud Desktop Security Questions for CISOs.” Read the blog for additional details, but the bottom line is: For security (and performance and scalability too!), you need a cloud desktop solution that separates the control and data planes. There’s only one: Workspot. And to enhance your business continuity plan, cloud desktops come with built-in DR, because when there’s a business disruption, people can access their cloud desktop from anywhere. Once they are safe, getting people back to productivity is paramount.
Business Agility is the Foundation for Growth
The term “business agility” is sprinkled about everywhere. It goes on my list of overused tech industry words, for sure. But that doesn’t make it any less important when defined precisely. In Mark Bowker’s report, he writes about two very key components of agility: the ability to spin up cloud desktops on-demand, and the ability to support temporary /seasonal workers by being able to easily turn on or turn off access to business resources. In addition to those things, our customers find new avenues for growth beyond previous geographical boundaries, because they can hire people anywhere in the world and give them a cloud desktop in minutes. Each of these abilities contributes to business growth. Not every cloud desktop solution provides this level of flexibility, but – you guessed it – Workspot does! This $1B MEP firm is going “all-in” on Workspot Workstation Cloud because it provides the performance and business agility the firm requires to accelerate growth.
We hope the report from ESG is helpful as you consider the alternatives to physical PC and legacy VDI complexity. When you’re ready, schedule a demo with us and bring your toughest questions. We look forward to discussing your unique requirements and helping make 2020 the year of the cloud desktop and the year of accelerated growth for your organization!
