Destination Desktop The post-pandemic journey to modern desktop delivery By Dan O’Farrell The COVID-19 pandemic has changed so many aspects of our lives, it’s challenging to even begin a list of things it affected. Our personal lives were turned upside down, and we did things in our professional lives we never thought we’d ever have to do. It has significantly changed the way we face the world, and some things may never get back to the way they were before. From a workforce standpoint, the pandemic forced many companies to quickly transition workers to a WFH model, and it was tough getting it going initially. The immediate pandemic response was, “Just make it work, and now!” Short-sighted pragmatism, supply shortages and the need to act fast often took precedence over cost savings implications and planning for the future. Now, more than two years after the initial lockdowns, many are left to ask themselves, “What’s next for desktop delivery?” Although there is considerable technical debt to deal with, we should avoid any instinct to just go back to the former way of doing things. In a recent industry survey, 75 percent of respondents agreed that, as we move forward, it doesn’t make sense to just perpetuate old ways of desktop management, control and operation. User needs and expectations have changed dramatically, and there are now new and smarter ways to deliver desktop services. Clearly, it is time to rethink desktop delivery and build a new foundation for the future. The initial wave of pandemic activity created an ongoing ripple effect where desktops are more efficiently and productively delivered via the cloud. Desktop management and control approaches and techniques that were bleeding-edge a few years ago – such as app virtualization, VDI and application streaming – are now mainstream and available almost off the shelf. This modern approach to desktop delivery is reducing dependency on the heavy, costly and cumbersome “fat client” computing model and has many advantages, including the following: • Greater agility for the business long term. Desktop delivery in the cloud enables business agility by reducing complexity. This is achieved by simplifying CONTROL 16 REMOTE WORK SOLUTIONS rwsmagazine.com
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