Five Ways to Align Your IT Strategy to Support Remote Working

Wherever your organisation is on the path to desktop nirvana, some inherent challenges need to be considered. Three challenges you may well be experiencing are:

• Infrastructure sprawl. Virtual desktop infrastructures (VDIs) that enable remote working require maintenance and scaling for servers, hypervisors, networking, storage, and images. Typically they are scaled for a maximum user count, but the reality is that usage varies, and left unchecked the size of a VDI deployment can be larger than required and become out of control.
• User experience and performance. Inadequate network and performance planning can lead to slow logins and a sub-par end user experience, negatively impacting adoption and user sentiment.
• Capacity and cost planning. Without adequate sizing and real-time provisioning tools, planning for today’s capacity while being prepared for capacity bursts and long-term growth can lead to costly over- or under-provisioning. Many existing servers and applications have been sized on historical limits and scale challenges, and do not take advantage of new GPU-enabled technology.

Choosing the right remote working solution will help navigate these challenges without breaking the bank, putting undue strain on IT, and driving away users. In this blog we’ll cover five ways you can align your IT strategy to enhance user experience and maximise productivity in this evolving operating landscape.

Align Your IT Strategy to Support Remote Working

Six Degrees partners with Citrix and Microsoft to deliver managed Virtual Desktop solutions that help you overcome your remote working challenges. Here are five ways this technology can help you align your IT strategy to better support remote working:

• Enable secure access to all the apps your employees need on any device, anywhere – in the office, at home or on the move. The Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service gives you flexibility through true hybrid management of on-premises apps and desktops alongside new Windows Virtual Desktops hosted in Azure. It also enables rapid rollout of updates and new applications, simplifying IT management with Secure Internet Access (SIA).
• Set up seamless single sign-on access across all apps, so employees can focus on staying productive rather than retyping login details for network access and different systems.
• Deliver clear, crisp, high-definition voice and video calls to enable seamless communication and collaboration with colleagues anywhere in the world. Citrix optimises Microsoft Teams with HDX RealTime Media Engine, resulting in clear, crisp, high-definition voice and video calls.
• Deliver a more intelligent user experience by proactively presenting what employees need, when they need it, making it easier to get work done by minimising clicks, screens, and toggles. Citrix Workspace gives people everything they need to work smarter and faster with a unified, personalised experience. All their apps and data are at their fingertips, so they can be more engaged with their work.
• Get real-time monitoring and analytics to respond to changing security, performance, and workload conditions. Real-time monitoring can help you to identify issues proactively and resolve them before users call the helpdesk, maximising productivity as well as identifying areas where you can scale back or redeploy under-utilised resources to avoid paying for capacity you’re not using.

Maximise Productivity in the New Normal

Remote working is here to stay. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to align your IT strategy to ensure you enhance user experience and maximise productivity in this evolving operating landscape. For more detail on how virtual desktop solutions can help your business deliver a more agile, productive and secure remote working solution to employees, check out our Remote Working Strategy eBook.