The number of remote workers around the globe is on the rise after COVID-19. More enterprises are employing virtualization to make their infrastructure mobile to support this trend. This is because virtualization helps increase flexibility and allows users to access the data from any location.
Financial institutions, in particular, have a lot of sensitive data and complex needs but don’t have a lot of time. They are large organizations with numerous users spread across locations and systems. In such a case, it becomes paramount to adhere to strict regulatory requirements for maintaining the highest level of data security and auditing.
VDI or virtual desktop infrastructure technology can address these issues while making it easier for IT to provision and manage systems throughout the IT environment.
What is VDI?
On a physical desktop, all your files, applications, and user-specific settings live on your PC or laptop and can be accessed by logging into that device. Virtual desktop infrastructure is the same concept, but rather than being tied to a specific device, your virtual system lives on servers—or in the cloud—and can be accessed from any laptop or desktop configured to access it.
When VDI is combined with a thin client solution, financial institutions enjoy the security, flexibility, and cost-efficiency of thin clients and can offer employees a clean, clutter-free workspace with room for upgrades that can boost productivity, such as larger and better monitors.
Key Advantages of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
An architecture that combines VDI for enterprise and thin clients offers some key advantages for highly regulated industries, such as healthcare and financial services.
A properly configured VDI offers financial institutions a variety of benefits. Let’s break down the advantages of virtual desktop infrastructure for financial institutions –
1. Security
VDI offers many security enhancements such as data loss prevention, patching simplification and secure remote access. VDI solutions eliminate the need and ability for local storage by limiting network access. Thus, sensitive information does not leave the network, offering less opportunity for it to be accessed by unauthorized parties. This is also helpful if a device is lost or stolen since nothing is saved on the actual hard drive of the machine.
2. Scalability
VDI solutions enable financial institutions to seamlessly handle unanticipated spikes in workloads. Leveraging that capacity allows desktops to be provisioned quickly and made accessible to users from anywhere while maintaining required security standards. This can allow institutions to manage their enterprise resiliency more dynamically.
3. Cost benefit
VDIs allow users to quickly scale up or down and pay only for what they use, reducing support costs. The money saved can be redeployed into products and strategies that can differentiate an institution in a competitive marketplace.
4. Secured access
VDI solutions for enterprise allow vendors, offshore developers, and other third parties to have unlimited access to resources while keeping sensitive information secure.
For example, when banks decided to administer the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program, those with cloud virtual desktop infrastructure were able to quickly and securely add temporary contract workers to manage the workload without the need to deploy company-managed devices or endpoints.
5. Operational support
Using cloud VDIs take the headache out of desktop management. It eliminates the need for you to continually reboot, patch and update workstations, which means you spend less time managing multiple endpoint devices, systems, and platforms. It also helps minimize IT staffing costs by solving security issues in advance through automation and integration with third-party software.
The major VDI for enterprise software providers offers autoscaling, monitoring and visualization. This eliminates the need to build separate toolsets around infrastructure provisioning and automation.
6. User experience
Cloud VDIs can simplify access to an enterprise desktop environment across multiple endpoints, improving performance and speed, and access by securely enabling users to access the enterprise desktop environment with a personal device. This gives enterprises the ability to heavily reduce costs involved with managing multiple systems because employees will only need a single machine for work and home.
Setting up and managing a VDI can be costly and time-consuming, especially if done incorrectly. Financial institutions should also understand how their employees will be using the desktops and plan accordingly for storage, processing operations, and connectivity.
Partnering with a technology consulting company with experience configuring and deploying a VDI solution is critical to ensure success. For instance, Wipro virtuadesk is a VDI for enterprises that helps modernize the workspace and leverage value from cloud-enabled virtual desktops.
Conclusion
VDI is a good solution for most modern IT environments. However, it is particularly well-suited to highly regulated industries, such as financial businesses, where data protection and strict auditing policies are mandated. With streamlined deployment and centralized systems management capabilities, VDI is a robust strategy financial institutions can bank on.
