The Future of the Windows Desktop Remote Part2

With millions of desktop endpoints being deployed each year, and many EUC (End-user computing) technologies to help with this process knowing which options to deploy can become confusing. In Part 1 we started to uncover the future of the windows desktop remote, and what your enterprise needs to understand in order to make good decisions about its endpoint deployment. This time we are going to uncover some additional business challenges that can impact your endpoint decision making, and then weigh the pros and cons of deploying RDSH (Remote Desktop Session Host), VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure), or DaaS (Desktops as a Service). It’s time!

More Key Business Challenges

The future of the windows desktop remote in your enterprise will not only be impacted by security factors that we discussed in part 1, but also the following:

DR (Disaster Recovery) – When considering how your enterprise does disaster recovery, If your enterprise has deployed disaster recovery. Make sure that the end-user workflow in a disaster scenario is not different from their daily workflow, or you will be left with confusion and employees unable to do their jobs.
BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) – With different application deployment options including cloud-based and virtualized applications and desktops many enterprises allow employees to bring their own device. If your enterprise does this the EUC technologies, you choose to deploy may vary.
Administrative Centralized Management – In enterprises with thousands of endpoints, centralizing application management on the server infrastructure side can be advantageous to the end-user and the administrator by streamlining upgrades and improving troubleshooting of issues. EUC deployments that include VDI, RDSH, and even DaaS deployments will allow for the ability to centralize management of the user endpoint.

These are all important drivers for EUC solutions. Once you have worked with your key business stakeholders to understanding your business challenges, it is then that the endpoint options and EUC technology solutions can be solidified. Let’s look!

EUC Technologies Pros and Cons

In order to align with the business needs we need to look at the EUC technologies, architecture, management, and business benefits. The chart below can help guide you to weighing the pros and cons to the EUC desktop deployment options. Providing an understanding of which technologies may be used for each of your business use cases for more complete insights into potential deployment options.

	Physical Desktops	VDI On-premises	RDSH	Cloud/DaaS
Architecture Complex	No	Yes	No, feature-light	Depends on Cloud Provider
Disaster Recovery (DR)	No	Yes + remote site	Yes + remote site	Yes
DR Remote site Infrastructure required	N/A	Yes	Yes	No, use cloud
BYOD	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Security Control	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Centralized Management	None	Yes, Feature-rich	Yes, feature-light	Depends on Cloud Provider

Bringing it all together

Let’s now consider the business use cases from the financial investment company we discussed in Part 1 article (or see below) and start thinking about which endpoints and technologies would be deployed.

Business Users – desktop for daily activities, locked down and not a PC administrator
Information Technology Staff – laptop for daily activities, and the ability to install software
Executives – likely will be similar the business users from a security perspective, but may have special requirements or additional devices such as tablets to accommodate their individual needs
Investors – Thin clients with multiple monitors to watch activities closely with internet access

Start asking yourself questions about these use cases – will a business user need a laptop, or would a cloud-based desktop meet all of a business user’s needs? Does an investor really need a thin client, with a full VDI deployment on the backend, or can this be done in a more simplified way? If I do this, can I setup a DR site in a remote location for failover if needed? Which uses cases need more security than others? There are many possibilities of questions you can think about here, and there isn’t one answer. It all depends on your enterprise use cases and business requirements.

Poll Time!

Now that we have been through all the enterprise considerations for endpoints and EUC technologies. If I ask you again what the future of the windows desktop remote is, and your choices are virtualized VDI on-premises, traditional physical endpoints (laptops, desktop, thin clients, tablets, etc) or DaaS.

What would your answer be now?

I suspect your answer now is that it will depend on your business use cases, and there is not any single distinct deployment silo that is the solution to your endpoint needs and requirements.

Concluding Thoughts

The future of the windows desktop is that endpoints are here to stay. Regardless of the endpoint type or backend EUC technology deployed users will need a secure way to do their work, creating business success for your enterprise.