Unprecedented conditions surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic have left many businesses scrambling to find ways to accommodate an increasingly remote and virtual workforce. More employees are on the move during their workday, and even more are using their mobile devices to accomplish work-related tasks.

This mobility, combined with the increasing number of employees who work remotely has made the need to access workplace desktops from anywhere easily and seamlessly a priority. Fortunately, Windows Virtual Desktop is designed to ensure you have access to the tools needed to work wherever you need to.

What is Windows Virtual Desktop?
Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) is a Microsoft Azure-based service that allows companies to deliver a full Windows experience to their workers, whether on-premise or remote, through the cloud. As the name implies, with WVD the Windows desktop, along with Windows-based applications, are accessed virtually.

In fact, the entire Windows environment, including applications, data, the user’s desktop interface, and even the Windows operating system itself, are all housed in the cloud rather than on the user’s local hard drive.

Why is Windows Virtual Desktop important?
Windows Virtual Desktop provides access to a virtual Windows computer running whatever apps a typical IT-sanctioned Windows computer should be running for your business. By taking advantage of Azure’s cloud infrastructure, businesses can setup multi-session Windows 10 deployments optimized to run in multi-user virtual scenarios.

From the worker’s perspective, their Windows Virtual Desktop is the same as their traditional PC settings in the office.

From the business’ perspective, the cost of purchasing, setting up, deploying, and securing physical hardware can be saved by entrusting Microsoft and Azure to handle those specifics in the cloud.

Is Windows Virtual Desktop secure?
The security advantages provided by Windows Virtual Desktop are immense. First, user workstations can be treated as thin clients with no local storage of their own. This means that your company’s sensitive and mission-critical data need never be downloaded to the devices of your remote workers. Instead, data remains centralized and secure in cloud storage.

Another advantage is that even if users are careless about important security practices, such as keeping the anti-malware apps on their devices updated, the fact that neither protected data nor critical applications are actually running on the employee’s device provides a crucial extra layer of protection from having your system compromised by malware or phishing attacks aimed at remote workers.

All this significantly lowers your vulnerability to malicious actors, whether external or internal, and to the careless errors even the most conscientious of human workers can’t completely avoid.

What’s required to run Windows Virtual Desktop?
This could be the best part, as all you need to run Windows Virtual Desktop is an Azure tenant and the right subscription to provide you with enough resource creation permissions. Once you have that, you can take full advantage of everything Windows Virtual Desktop has to offer.

What’s Next
As we move forward in this new world where remote work will be more of the norm, Companies that are early adopters of Windows Virtual Desktop will almost certainly gain an advantage.

Download our eBook and see why virtualization is becoming an attractive alternative for companies looking to boost their business agility as they simplify IT operations, improve business continuity, and minimize risks.

If you’d like to explore how WVD can work for your company, we’d love to help. Reach out to us today info@amtrasolutions.com.