Windows Virtual Desktop: Client Case Studies & Usage

Windows Virtual Desktop: Client Case Studies & Usage

[Jeff Lauria] Hi, Jeff Lauria, Vice President of Technology of iCorps Technologies! Today, I'd like to talk about Windows Virtual Desktop and how it can help your business, but let me give you some context.

I want to talk about two businesses and how Windows Virtual Desktop helped them. The first business is a construction firm with about 120 users. One of their challenges was how to use a product, in their case, Sage 200 & 300, across their organization, how to enable their remote users, their work from home users, and give their infield users access to this database, and this program, in a very secure manner.

What they were doing was they had the database hosted inside; they would use a traditional VPN to connect, users found it slow and unreliable. We came in, and we designed a virtual windows environment based on Azure Windows Virtual Desktop. And what that is, is it allows a user with an internet connection on any device, a laptop, a notebook, an iPad, an Android device, an iPhone, to connect securely over the internet to a virtual windows machine, which then connected to, in this particular case, Sage. By doing so, they reduce the total cost of ownership. They increased their productivity and their reliability.

That is one case. The second was, we had a client in the banking industry who came to us in the last three or four months, and they now have to accommodate over 100 work from home users. And their focus was security and regulatory compliance.

We were able to deploy Windows Virtual Desktop using multi-factor authentication in an environment that had limited access to the internet. We took advantage of Azure's security center, so we were able to accomplish their goal. Allowing more than 100 users, we were able to scale up and down as needed with a great experience, and a very secure environment, on a platform that meets most regulatory frameworks.

Now, the benefits of Windows Virtual Desktop are scalability. You can scale up and down as needed, so we don't have to worry about slowness in the case of the VPN user.

Security. Multi-factor authentication. We can build in security services, not only those built into Azure but the security services, which iCorps can provide as well. Scalability, accountability. And it really allows your remote workers — one of the savings that I think a lot of organizations don't realize is now we don't have to give remote workers laptops or devices. They can use their own device to make that initial connection, and then you can control the whole environment from that point forward.

You can access it via a client. You can access it over a web page. So the accessibility is very flexible. It is highly secure. And you make one change, it affects all users. So now, the total cost of ownership is reduced. So instead of touching 100 laptops or 200 laptops, you're now touching one image that applies to everybody.

Now, these two cases were remote workers. We enabled remote workers in the field for this construction company. In this financial institution, we were able to enable remote workers in a secure manner. We have organizations who also use Virtual Desktop internally. So on-prem, they've bought low-end equipment, so they have not had to buy expensive laptops. They could buy Chrome books; they could buy very lower-end equipment and connect.

One such case is a design firm that uses — at one point, they were using four and $5,000 laptops. Now they are using $500 consumption devices that are connecting to the platform, and they're running all their applications. And what they can do is when they need to render an image, they turn the horsepower up, and then when they don't need to render an image, the horsepower drops down. So does the compute cost.

So if you have any additional questions on how Windows Virtual Desktop can help you and your business be productive, secure, scalable, and cost-effective; reach out to us here at iCorps Technologies.

Check Out Some iCorps Client Case Studies: