Conversations with Customers: 4 Key Cloud VDI Use Cases for a Global Enterprise

This week I want to share my conversation with a large, global enterprise. The IT team had just received a proposal for a legacy VDI solution when they heard about Workspot cloud VDI. We might be smaller than those guys, but we are mighty! On the recommendation of a CIO peer in another company, the team hopped on a call to discuss their requirements. As you know, this is one of my favorite ways to spend my time! Discussing cloud VDI use cases and solving IT challenges for these organizations in a way that no one else can and that frees them to grow, is really exciting. This organization wanted to talk about 4 primary use cases: Contractors, HPC, M&A and DR. It just so happens that we have many existing customers who are already benefiting from our cloud VDI solutions in each of these areas.

Aligning our respective visions

We started off talking about both Workspot’s and the company’s vision for end user computing. We often described ourselves as the “Uber of VDI”, which is to say that we are a turnkey service that delivers virtual desktops and workstations from the cloud to your users, anywhere they happen to be. The experience is great for both users and IT, there’s no hassling with infrastructure, and the price is right, eliminating Capex and the worries C-levels have about unpredictable cloud computing costs (with Workspot you get flat-rate pricing!).

Today, though, I took that vision one step further. Uber is a good analogy, but thinking about Workspot as a “global utility” for virtual desktops is even better. What does a utility do for you? It’s always there, you don’t have to deal with how it works – it just does, you expect and accept a certain level of service, you can turn it on and off, and you pay subscription pricing. That’s exactly what Workspot cloud VDI is, and that kind of simplicity is exactly what this enterprise is looking for too. Let’s take a closer look at the cloud VDI use cases we discussed.

Use Case 1: Global Contractors

Security mandates are of utmost importance in enterprise organizations and this one is no different. With contractors all over the world, the risk of data ending up in the wrong hands, either through an intentional attack or simple human error, such as when a laptop or tablet is lost or stolen, is very real. For both employees and contractors, taking data security measures is essential, but for contractors, who are not necessarily bound by the same obligations to the company, it’s even more imperative. Securing apps and data is one of the biggest drivers for enterprises to implement virtual desktops, and when you add the ease with which cloud desktops can be deployed, anywhere in the world, in the words of one of our customers, “Workspot is a no-brainer”. Workspot’s cloud-native architecture has specific innovations aimed at security: Our control plane is completely separate from the data plane, so your company data never enters our control plane – it stays safe in the cloud. And when you think about the billions of dollars the major public cloud players are spending on security, what you can accomplish on-premises really pales in comparison. With Workspot, contractor access to data is monitored and secured.

Use Case 2: High-Performance, GPU-Intensive Computing

This enterprise characterized HPC as one of their biggest challenges, yet it’s one of Workspot’s biggest strengths. They have designers and engineers all over the world, and that comes with a whole host of issues: Expensive data replication, data security risks, slow file uploads/downloads, risk of overwrites – any of these problems can be very costly to deal with. We’ve become so successful in implementing cloud workstations for our customers because there is so much pent up demand; anyone using GPU-intensive apps such as CAD has never really been able to make virtual desktops work for them in a way that makes power users happy, delivers solid ROI, and positions companies for growth. And that’s exactly what Workspot Workstation Cloud does for organizations across manufacturing, life sciences, architecture, engineering, and construction.

Use Case 3: Mergers & Acquisitions

M&As come with many organizational challenges, not the least of which is onboarding and merging workforces. Typically companies have disparate IT systems they have to reconcile, and that is nothing less than a nightmare. But what if, after acquiring a company, you could just spin up hundreds or thousands of enterprise-customizable cloud desktops for all those new knowledge and task workers, and cloud workstations for all your power users – in minutes? What if you could integrate that capability with your ITSM, such as ServiceNow, and people could just submit a ticket for a new cloud desktop, which would be automagically provisioned and charged to the right department? One of our customers does exactly that, where the cloud desktop is ready for the requesting user in less than 45 minutes. Compared to the old-school ways of provisioning physical desktops or legacy virtual desktops, that is amazing!

Use Case 4: Disaster Recovery

Many organizations have a gaping hole in their DR plan: In a business continuity event, if people can’t make it to the office, how are they going to work? The answer is simple: With a single click, IT can activate standby cloud desktops so people can stay wherever they are safe, use any device to access their cloud desktop, and get back to productivity. That’s it!

Does any of these cloud VDI use cases ring a bell? Do you need a simple, global, enterprise-ready, turnkey way to address any of them in your organization? Get in touch and let’s talk through your requirements! Schedule a demo now.