Two months into widespread home-confinement in Luxembourg, and it’s been amazing to see the great work done by IT departments up and down the country to make homeworking happen and ensure the continuity of key corporate applications.
While larger outfits may have been able to tackle the issue head-on, many small- and medium-sized operations may struggle more to transform IT operations at such short notice. A recent business continuity survey conducted by Gartner revealed that just 12 percent of IT organizations were prepared to deal speedily with an incident like we are experiencing with the Coronavirus. One major element in this unpreparedness is the lack of a robust and agile platform supporting remote working (‘télétravail’).
12 % Percentage of IT organizations prepared for a Covid-19 style crisis
VPN dominates as the go-to solution
Generally speaking, in light of Covid-19, we have seen larger organizations invest significantly in deploying and boosting the performance of enterprise-wide VPN (Virtual Private Network).
How does a VPN connection work?
A VPN allows the end-user to access network resources and a company intranet through what is referred to as a tunnel. This links an external machine to corporate resources. In other words, a VPN is a simple pipe giving access to a remote server – the user’s device still requires pre-installed applications/platforms on his device.
Under this scenario, many organizations have distributed laptops to their mobile workforce, sometimes even purchasing new equipment to replace the usual desktop set-up. The challenges (and pain points) involved are numerous: between the cost of end-point equipment, the effort required to manage devices and additional software licenses, IT teams have their work cut out. Added to this is the highly increased security exposure: mobile devices can open up the organization to data leaks. Without significant budget to invest in security, the drawbacks are clear.
A secure, smart alternative: VDI or DaaS
While investing massively in VPN solutions, organizations may have overlooked its more agile younger sister: VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure), otherwise know as DaaS (Desktop as a Service).
How does a VDI connection work?
A virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is a method of virtualization that allows a virtual desktop to run on your servers (at your premises or via a third-party data center). The end-user can remotely access his/her virtual desktop from any device of his/her choice.
In this scenario, companies can give their employees the freedom to access a virtual desktop from any device— even a widescreen TV. Device-level security becomes less important because the user’s personal PC, mobile or other device essentially become a “thin client device” and all of the user’s activities take place within a virtual machine in the organization’s own data center. In simple terms, devices (desktops, laptops, mobiles, etc.) are no longer the source which stores your data and applications: they become hardware which can be used by all users to access their ‘desktop’ information and applications stored in the company’s data center. If the user somehow manages to infect the virtual desktop’s OS with malware, it isn’t a huge problem because virtual desktops on the server are typically nonpersistent, which means they reset to a pristine state at the end of each session.
An extra perk: VDI can be deployed in days rather than months.
