If you’re like most companies, your remote work program until now made up a subsection or possibly a small part of your work force and operations. Some positions were ideally suited for it such as project managers or specialized tech support that are out and about remotely working. For most staff members, remote work was limited to short windows such as an occasional snow day or a family matter that forced them home for one reason or another. Some companies recently have allowed employees to work from home one day a week as a perk or incentive to improve company retention rates.
But all that is different now. It is a different world than it was 60 days ago. COVID-19 is presenting challenges for companies on a global basis. Suddenly, remote work is now applying to nearly everyone, and no one knows how long the required window of time will be. It may even greatly accelerate the paradigm of remote work on a permanent basis.
Which gets us to the fundamental question: Is your enterprise ready for remote work on a large scale?
This is one of the major challenges facing large enterprises and even small businesses as we write this. While it’s common practice for all companies to have a business continuity strategy in place, these recent events have fiercely tested those strategies. The core of why you develop a BC strategy in the first place is to ensure your business can continue to operate in the wake of the unknown, but as the enterprise tech world evolves, do you have the right technologies and partner ecosystems in place to win? In other words, is your company prepared to accept and conquer unforeseen business challenges?
Think Applications, Not Devices
WEI can provide answers to these questions given our breadth and depth of experience in all things enterprise IT, and we have a steadfast OEM partner network in our arsenal that enables us to build custom IT solutions for any business. But to tackle the challenge at hand, today we’re talking about remote work strategies. We have been helping companies transition from the desktop computer model to the digital workspace for years. We have been delivering on End User Computing solutions for companies across the country that incorporate the latest VDI technology from proven vendors such as VMware.
Many companies associate remote work programs with device deployment, but an end user computing solution does not have to translate to an end user device. WEI focuses on delivering application and content experiences to employees. It is the guiding principle of our solutions. The idea is simple, while you cannot control the remote environment where your users reside or the end user device they choose, you can have absolute control over their application and desktop environment.
Application portability, not device portability, is the end goal. That’s because the productivity of your users doesn’t depend on a device, it depends on the applications they need. Our solutions translate into serving the needs of both the user and the IT team that supports them.
- Deliver the applications that users need on demand regardless of location or device choice
- Centralize policy management for IT teams, ensuring them the ability to maintain control and service the enterprise regardless of device type
A Time of Heightened Compliance and Security
Just because your end user environments have moved off-premise does not mean your company is magically exempt from compliance requirements such as HIPAA or CCPA. When you implement a remote work program by issuing devices, you are expanding the attack surface of your enterprise. The irony is that in an effort to protect their employees from the Coronavirus, companies are exposing their enterprise to other types of viruses and malware attacks launched at isolated users within unidentified environments. What’s more, devices can be stolen, lost and compromised when residing in unsecured environments. Regardless of these challenges however, organizations are still being held accountable for their obligatory duty of care when it comes to securing sensitive data.
When desktops or apps are virtualized, they still run within the secure data center of your on-premises facility or in the cloud. This means that only the rendering of the user interface is transmitted beyond the firewall. Regardless of where your users reside at the moment, their end user experience is completely secure. This protects not only their user experience, but the mothership as well.
Let WEI Validate Your Environment for Virtualization
Conditions are evolving on a daily, if not hourly basis during the present global pandemic. Things are happening fast and companies are literally pushing their employees out the door in an effort to protect their health and well-being. At times like these, how can you be assured that your remote work solution is ready for prime time when you need it?
At WEI, we believe that virtualization is a key component to providing a fast, flexible, user-friendly digital workspace environment that ensures proficiency, elasticity, and security. Our solutions incorporate VMware technologies such as Horizon View, Workspace One and vSphere infrastructures. It all starts however with obtaining a true understanding of your business. This means a full comprehension of your application ecosphere and understanding how your users interact with those applications. It is at that point we perform a comprehensive VDI assessment of your environment. This includes the validation of all hardware compatibility, software compatibility matrixes and upstream/downstream dependencies. In addition, it includes the following:
- Validation of all hardware compatibility comprised within the solution
- Assess the current compatibility of corporate applications
- Provide guidance on a Horizon View solution that could meet corporate needs
- Determine the proper sizing of the proposed VDI solution, and how to best deliver a production environment (either on-premises or in the cloud)
- Validation of upstream/downstream dependencies of the employed architecture
Through our validation process, we can determine the proper sizing of the proposed VDI solution, and how to best deliver a production environment, either on-premises or in the cloud.
If you already have a VDI solution in place , WEI can provide a VDI Health Check which includes the following:
- Confirm that the current environment is in a healthy state, to avoid any outages
- Validate performance of virtualized desktops
- Confirm that the environment will scale to licensed capacity
- Ensure security compliance is still in place and certificates won't expire
- Provide an "As Built" report of the infrastructure
- Provide a VMware Health Check analyzer report of the environment
Learn more about a WEI VDI Assessment or VDI Health Check and how to get started today.
Project Management and Training
At WEI, we emphasize project management throughout any implementation project we take on. This includes weekly project status updates as well as a full knowledge transfer of the technologies we incorporate within your solutions. And we can do this virtually with your team. From solution design to delivery and beyond, WEI is with you every step of the way.
Most importantly, the team here at WEI asks that you practice caution and vigilance in all aspects of your life during this challenging period. Stay safe.
