After an extensive evaluation process that considered other solutions, Siemens Energy determined that the Workspot solution was the best fit due to their complex mix of on-premises, hybrid. and multi-cloud requirements.  Workspot’s ease of deployment, implementation, operation, and management of VDI combined with the global reach and performance of Google Cloud and the flexibility to also deploy and manage workloads in other clouds as well as on-premises, with a single management interface, were key. In essence, we represented an unbeatable combination.

As Wolfgang Schubert, VP of Digital Transformation at Siemens Energy said, “Leveraging Workspot and Google Cloud enables us to modernize our previous VDI deployments, streamline our operations, and reduce costs. We are looking forward now to a successful deployment across our organization.” The fact that Workspot offers a simple, cloud-agnostic VDI solution that easily spans multiple clouds and regions around the globe served as a strong factor in Siemens Energy’s decision, given that they operate in over 90 countries and their people access a wide range of apps, including GPU-powered high-performance workloads that include processing-intensive engineering and CAD design jobs. The combination of Google Cloud and Workspot is proving to offer Siemens Energy the ideal mix of geographical reach, end-user performance, and system-wide reliability.

As the Workspot sales leader for the EMEA region, I am seeing that Siemens Energy is not alone in their need for a new, modern, cloud-native VDI solution that combines great performance for end-users with extreme simplicity for IT teams. The manufacturing sector is just one of the areas where Workspot’s solution is an ideal fit, and I’m very encouraged at the scale of our opportunity to replace legacy Citrix and Horizon VDI deployments, across the UK, Europe, and elsewhere in the region.

The world needs a VDI solution that is no longer hindered and restricted by the legacy approach of traditional VDI. Workspot has the answer, and I’m super-excited to be part of the journey!

You can read the press release here .

– Andy Hardy, EMEA Sales Leader

The post Siemens Energy Chooses Workspot and Google Cloud for Global VDI appeared first on Workspot.

Remote and Hybrid Work Trends

At Workspot, we hold webinars regularly, and I always include a series of polling questions. It’s interesting to see over time how the answers from attendees shift, giving us a good sense of what’s top of mind for people. One of the questions I always ask the audience is “Where is your primary work location?” Of course, you can guess that during the lockdown, the vast majority of people have been primarily working from home – upwards of 80% for much of the last 18 months. In the poll last week, it was notable that the numbers of people declaring the office as their primary work location have started to increase – about 36% in our audience poll, whereas the percent of people working primarily from home has dropped to 55%. Some people have always worked from home – about 9% in this poll. It seems that a cautious shift back to the office – part time – is taking place, and yet overwhelmingly people want (are demanding in many cases) the flexibility to work anywhere. I wanted to discuss the implications of that with Barge.

What can we learn from examining “a day in the life” of a Barge power user? Here are some of my key takeaways from our conversation.

Keep Your Data Close

Back in the day, Barge provided their designers with expensive, GPU-powered workstations. These high-end workstations are really a thing of beauty, until you have to carry it around or work remotely! In some cases Barge would double up on the hardware and provide people with a workstation at home too – then they would VPN in to the data to do their work. That’s when things get really dicey. Setting aside the cost of redundant hardware, performance problems, security risks and data integrity are all problems that arise with VPNs. For CAD designers/engineers working on huge 3D files, the distance to their data is critical because latency kills performance. This was all problematic before Covid, but now that most people will be working from home at least part time, the VPN approach is obsolete.

Traditional VDI is another approach to supporting remote work, but distance-to-your-data is still a problem. Anyone who is remote from that datacenter will probably be pretty unhappy with performance. Darn those laws of physics! Latency just is.

The Barge team knew they had to address the latency and data integrity challenges, so they got started by implementing Panzura controllers in some of their branch offices. This was the first step in moving data closer to end users, and it was a smart move. When they discovered Workspot, they took the next step: They moved their workstations to Microsoft Azure alongside a Panzura instance in Azure. What’s really bold about this step is that they started with the most difficult workload – their CAD power users who used the most GPU-intensive apps. That didn’t worry us at all, but that leap of faith by the Barge team would prove to be highly valuable to the business.

Achieve a Consistent User Experience

Some of the Barge designers were quite resistant to Workspot. “I was very suspect and resistant to Workspot initially,” said power user Josh Caldwell. The IT team worked closely with the initial group of cloud workstation adoptees to address their concerns – mainly about the “unknown.” Once these power users tried their cloud workstations, they never looked back. Josh goes on to say, “Now I can’t imagine a day of work without Workspot!” At this point, the days of over-provisioning hardware, worrying about data replication, and enduring lackluster performance over a VPN are over. The rollout of Workspot continued, with some of the strongest resisters to the change becoming the most vocal with their praise for their cloud workstations.

This takes us to March 2020 when everyone had to go home to work. Barge IT Director David Ferguson said, “It was business as usual.” We’ve heard this many times from our customers, and it never fails to astonish me. During the biggest business disruption in history, Workspot customers experienced “business as usual” when they sent people home to work. From the standpoint of the technology and the user experience, the shift to remote work was a non-event, because accessing and working on your cloud workstations is exactly the same great experience – no matter where you are working or what end point you are using. This is how productivity increased at Barge during this time. When people changed locations, nothing about their compute experience changed. It is always a consistent user experience, anywhere they need to work.

Infrastructure? Just Say “No”

Many organizations have branch offices for one reason or another, and buying and maintaining server infrastructure is no picnic. Barge has many branch offices, and it was a huge resource commitment to keep up on all that infrastructure, in addition to trying to keep laptops up to date with security patches.

With Workspot, all that cost and effort is history. There’s no infrastructure to deal with – Workspot has all of that covered. The last two branch offices Barge opened were totally server-less. You only need an internet connection and then you get to work right away on your cloud workstations. Hardware refreshes are history too, and older endpoints are new again when they access a Workspot Cloud PC or workstation. The Barge team is enjoying the freedom of having a lightweight device that is portable, so they can pick up and go wherever they need to work. “We are out of the hardware business,” said David Ferguson.

Be Ready for the Next Disruption

Because they have so many branch offices, Barge has been affected by natural disasters in the past. They have been in the difficult position of losing productivity when a whole fleet of PCs and workstations had to be replaced after a tornado. Worse, before Panzura, the data those people needed to keep working was just not available at any other location. Today, if bad weather in on the way, as long as the power is on and people are safe, they can get back to work using any device at hand, because apps and data are in the cloud. That’s an amazing thing when we’re talking about designers who cannot compromise on performance! The Barge teams calls out this greater business resiliency as a major benefit of Workspot and Panzura.

Ready to learn more? Schedule a demo and we’ll show you how it works!

The post Conversations with Customers: Hybrid Work Trends and Lessons Learned appeared first on Workspot.

For any of the approaches to cloud desktops you’re considering, IT leaders and solution architects must understand how solution architectures either enable or limit your ability to meet your end user computing requirements now and for the long term.

That’s why we started our Cloud Strategies webinar series. It’s a place you can come to hear from Workspot customers who’ve been down the virtual desktop evaluation road already – so you can benefit from their wisdom. Even if the webinar we’re hosting is not in your particular industry, there’s plenty of great insights from these IT leaders that will help you ask the right questions of virtual desktop vendors.

Our On the Spot! thought leadership webinar series features IT visionaries sharing their latest insights on cloud computing and digital transformation. It’s a place for IT experts and the cloud desktop community to gather, share, brainstorm, and learn.

Here’s our cloud desktop webinar roundup of some recent webinars I think you’ll enjoy.

Cloud Strategies Webinar Series

Join our live webinars to make sure you get all your hard questions answered! Host Brad Peterson always has a lively exchange with his guests. Don’t miss these learning opportunities:

Coming Up! Cloud Strategies Live Webinar

July 29th, 2021 10AM PDT

Register Now!  Sherwood Design Engineers Moved Their Civil Engineering to the Cloud

Director of Technology Chuck Smith and CAD Manager and Associate Jim Graul discuss how their firm moved beyond the limitations of traditional physical workstations and found success with GPU-accelerated cloud workstations.

Anytime! Cloud Strategies On-Demand Webinars

Here’s a rundown of recent webinars, now available on-demand, that include Workspot customers speaking about their evaluation, implementation, and ongoing management experiences:

Watch Now! Cloud Architects Reveal Their Secrets of Global Cloud Desktop Deployments

Why are large enterprises choosing the Workspot Enterprise Desktop Cloud platform? Join us to hear about the Workspot cloud desktop difference: Simplicity, horizontal scalability; tougher security, innovative resilience.

Watch Now! How to Grow the Business 300% Without Adding Staff

Cloud workstations accelerated this environmental consulting firm’s growth plans in a way they never expected!

Watch Now! Remote Working Town Hall: CIOs Discuss What Surprised Them Most

Here’s a look back at how remote working affected power users, plus a few predictions about the future of end user computing.

Watch Now!  Ask the Architect: Why VDI Should Not Feel Like Climbing Mount Everest!

Industry expert and cloud architect Micheal Keen has conquered many legacy VDI implementations. He has also slayed Mount Everest – TWICE – so he knows how a virtual desktop implementation should not feel!

On the Spot! Webinar Series

On the Spot! features tech industry leaders and visionaries who are helping accelerate digital transformation. Join us for this thought leadership series.

Coming Up! On the Spot! Live Webinar

August 12, 2021 10AM Pacific

Register Now! On the Spot! with John McKinley, cloud strategy expert and former Fortune 500 CTO 

Anytime! On the Spot! On-Demand Webinars

Watch Now! On the Spot! with former Citrix CEO Mark Templeton, Episode 1

IT visionary Mark Templeton shares insights about utility end-user computing, why a solid cloud-first strategy is required to fully support work-from-anywhere (WFx), and his predictions about the role of cloud desktops for WFx.

Watch Now! On the Spot! with former Citrix CEO Mark Templeton, Episode 2

In this follow-on episode we dig deeper into the technologies and strategies that enable work from anywhere. What are the differences between DIY and SaaS approaches to virtual desktops? What are the top questions to ask DaaS providers to make sure they’re offering a true hyperscale DaaS solution?

There’s no better way to understand the differences between do-it-yourself virtual desktop solutions and SaaS cloud desktops. Tune in to these and more cloud desktop webinars to hear directly from Workspot customers and industry experts.

Ready to see how it works? Schedule a demo to see the Workspot Enterprise Desktop Cloud platform in action and discuss the possibilities SaaS cloud desktops brings to your organization.

The post Cloud Desktop Webinar Roundup: IT Experts, Thought Leaders Share Their Wisdom appeared first on Workspot.

GFS is a progressive company. They have always supported allowing people to work remotely – a wise policy when it comes to productivity and employee satisfaction. Additionally, since they are headquartered in a small town, it’s difficult to find the personnel they need within commute distance to headquarters. Their cloud strategy for end user computing grew out of this desire to have access to a larger talent pool. The challenge was with trying to get acceptable performance from the VPN they used. For some employees it worked fine, but for engineers and designers working with huge CAD files, the performance just wasn’t good enough. This meant that engineers and designers often had to come to the office nights and weekends to work. When the engineering team pressed for remote work options, IT ramped up their search for an alternative. IT manager Scott Funk had used Citrix previously, but was concerned about the amount of infrastructure needed to run it. Cloud solutions they reviewed were not a good fit. Since they had begun migrating some of their technology to Microsoft Azure, the contacts they developed there introduced them to Workspot.

Deployment journey

Scott, who led the overall project, first contacted a current Workspot customer and discussed their success with cloud desktops and workstations. After his initial engagement with Workspot, Scott compared the experience with the other vendors he had considered. “It just felt better engaging with Workspot,” he said. This hunch would be validated with the next step, which was running a demo on Workspot with some of their CAD files to prove that cloud workstations could work in their exact environment. From there, they were quickly up and running with five GPU cloud workstations as a more thorough test. Just as they were wrapping up this POC, COVID-19 stay-at-home orders came down. “In 24 hours or less we had 50 more cloud desktops and workstations available to us” says Funk. People went home and were immediately productive. In many cases, people took their monitors home and used whatever device they had at home. Security was fortified through the Workspot Client and using Okta MFA, alleviating any concerns.

From Workspot’s perspective this was a very smooth rollout – even with the urgency of the stay-at-home orders – due in large part to the cumulative years of experience of the GFS IT team. From the beginning, the two teams held weekly deployment meetings that went very well. The GFS team came away from those meetings with a very clear picture of what was needed as next steps. “The collaboration was outstanding” says Workspot Customer Success champion Chet Hervey. “The only small glitch I can think of is that early on in the project we realized that Autodesk Vault was in Azure East-Central and needed to be rebuilt and re-synced in Azure North Central, which added a small amount of work for GFS,” said Hervey. “We hit every milestone,” says Funk, ‘I can’t think of any way to improve Workspot’s rollout process.”

Stakeholder buy-in

The transition from physical workstations to Workspot GPU-accelerated cloud workstations was smooth sailing all the way. With remote work already legitimized, the team was already poised to be remote full-time. Response from employees has been very positive. The entire company was very impressed with the speed at which they were able to deploy the cloud desktops and workstations and send everyone home. Beyond that, power users have provided feedback about the great performance of even the most graphics-intensive apps, such as Autodesk Inventor. The executive team found that people were more responsive and more productive at home.

“Workspot is so straightforward, there’s not much for people to learn.” says Funk. Senior designer Layona Manka says, “The transition from working at the office to working at home using Workspot has really been a wonderful experience both personally and professionally. My productivity has probably increased. Personally it’s been great because you might have an appointment, and if that takes a couple of hours I can make that up at night while the kids are asleep or on a weekend morning while they’re watching cartoons.”

Lessons learned and next steps

Workspot is unique in that we are very close to our customers, Because we invented the technology and we run the platform, we have the opportunity to deepen our partnership with customers on an ongoing basis. It’s a very high-value relationship for both parties: Our customers can influence our product roadmap as they discover new requirements for the business, and Workspot continually learns about our customers’ needs through regular, ongoing engagement, and that knowledge is invested back into the product to evolve the platform for all customers. The Global Finishing team joins Workspot for a “check-in” meeting each quarter, to learn about new features, share any concerns, and propose new features.

Between the combination of Workspot, Microsoft Teams and other solutions that are working so well, GFS is in no rush to return everyone to the office. They are considering a flexible, hybrid approach to who is in the office, when. Additionally, they now have the opportunity to bring on more engineers and draft-experts from larger cities, which also allows them to expand into new markets and pursue opportunities in distant geographies as well. “With everyone going home to work, my feeling is that people have gained a great deal of confidence through working more independently,” says Funk. “As people return to the office at least part time, there is an opportunity to change the way things are done, because we have worked in the cloud over the past year, and change will be more easily embraced.”

“The Workspot staff from beginning to end was great. They are always there for us, the response time is great and they always have the right answer.” says Funk. “I have implemented complicated VDI solutions in the past and it takes a long time. I am just amazed by the speed at which Workspot was deployed. It could not have gone any better.”

Ready to learn more? Schedule a demo and we’ll show you how it works!

The post Conversations with Customers: Global Finishing Solutions Thinks Big with Cloud Workstations appeared first on Workspot.

This week I wanted to share the story of an IT team that was unafraid to transform their IT systems. Their primary goal? To better serve their clients. What makes this story really unique is that there was some pretty fierce resistance to moving to Workspot. Here’s the story of Barge Design Solutions’ journey to cloud workstations.

How Can We Be Better?

Barge Design, a leading U.S. firm specializing in the design of healthcare, education and community architecture, was looking for a differentiator. Like many IT teams who have become business strategy leaders in addition to their technology prowess, the team at Barge realized that the time and expense spent managing all of the infrastructure across their offices – including servers, routers, switches, and local file controllers, not to mention managing and updating a whole fleet of big, heavy CAD laptops for each designer – was clearly not strategic to the business. They asked themselves if there was a better way to take care of end user computing that would free them from applying so many resources on IT operational issues and instead focus those resources on providing even more services to their clients. It’s really brave to ask these questions: Can someone else manage these systems more efficiently than we can? Can we achieve better security through IaaS than we could running this infrastructure ourselves? If we make a change, will we be able to keep our power users happy?

These are great questions and the Barge IT team wasn’t afraid to ask them. As they added more sophisticated technology, including the use of drones and laser scanning into their IT mix to better serve clients, it was time to reconsider spending precious IT resources on “keeping the lights on” tasks such as physical desktop provisioning. That’s when they established their cloud-first strategy  and shortly thereafter discovered Workspot cloud workstations.

“No, We Are Not Going to Workspot”

The ultimate deal killer is if users are unhappy with application performance. This has been the hallmark of legacy VDI solutions – users are frustrated and the business takes a productivity hit. So when Mechanical Engineer Andrew Christiansen was told the firm was moving to Workspot, his first reaction was “Nope, no we’re not. We’ll have to remote in and that is not going to work for me.” According to Andrew, he had a long list of objections. What if I’m in an airport? What if I’m flying? What if I’m at a client location and they don’t know their WiFi password? I won’t be able to get anything done. And so on. What does Andrew think now? “I absolutely love it. I have used it on a whole bunch of different systems. I love my iPad – it’s so easy to travel with. One of my favorite features of Workspot is being able to leave one computer and pick up somewhere else and keep working exactly where I left off.” Andrew notes that anyone who uses CAD or other GPU-intensive apps knows that any glitch – maybe your keystroke doesn’t happen fast enough – causes you to lose several minutes of train-of-thought as you try to figure out what your computer is “stuck” on. With Workspot cloud workstations, the power users at Barge are experiencing a whole new world. “I can do anything – it’s great,” says Andrew.

First Group of Power Users Goes Live

From a deployment and operational standpoint, the implementation went well overall, but there were a couple of glitches along the way. That’s where our Customer Success Team really shines. Whether the issue our customer is experiencing is a Workspot-specific issue or something outside of our solution that is affecting user experience, we’re on it for you. “Workspot was very responsive to help us get over any hurdles; they really wanted to help with the user experience,” says David Ferguson, IT Director at Barge. The firm quickly began experiencing the benefits of their end user computing transformation, including their ability to use low-cost endpoints, avoid additional hardware refreshes, and open serverless and infrastructure-free offices, making it easier and more cost-effective to grow the business. Additionally, the improved business continuity that is built-in to cloud workstations allowed them to stay productive through some serious weather events by working remotely.

It’s a Pandemic

Everything was going along just great. Then we heard the official words from WHO – it’s a pandemic. There’s no doubt that we were all shocked by the pandemic declaration, but for IT teams who suddenly had to scramble to figure out how to support people working remotely, there was surely some panic. For many businesses, it was an existential situation; indeed some businesses have not made it through the downturn. Fortunately our friends at Barge are still going stronger than ever. Having just finished their initial Workspot deployment, the shelter-in-place orders were issued. Barge was easily able to scale their Workspot implementation and keep serving their customers while working remotely, by simply adding the licenses they needed to bring additional users onto the Workspot platform. Those users were up, running and productive in a couple of days. No hassles, no dread. What was unknown, however, was how productivity would be affected, and how people would fare working remotely. The results? Barge reports that productivity is up. They have also surveyed their users about their experience; aren’t these comments every business and IT leader’s dream?

“We work for a great company.”
“It was fantastic.”
“Leadership was flexible.”
“Collaboration of the teams has been awesome.”
“Barge stuck with me during this pandemic.”

Workspot is very proud and happy to be working with a company that is not only as committed to its customers as we are, but a company with heart. Thank you Barge Design Solutions for being a part of the Workspot family!

Ready to learn more? Schedule a demo and we’ll show you how it works!

The post Conversations with Customers: “We’re Switching to Workspot Cloud Workstations? No We’re Not.” (!) appeared first on Workspot.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been speaking with many customers and hosting webinars with some of them too. We’ve been sharing our thoughts on remote work, including early concerns, making the transition, surprises along the way, and speculating about what our “new norm” will look like.

Remote Work Surprises

Our customers tell us they have been surprised at some of the results of remote working. The top two surprises:

1. How fast and easy it was to transition to working from home
2. Contrary to expectations, productivity is up

Customers have universally been impressed with how cloud desktops and workstations made the transition to remote work fast, easy and seamless. When shelter-in-place directives were issued, many employees could literally grab their large monitors and their docking station, take them home and get to work immediately.

“It just so happened that we were already invested in the Workspot platform, and we were invested in the idea of expanding the platform to encompass most of our company, to take us into the future. We’re extremely pleased at how quickly we were able to adapt and get our people home and working.” Mark Rodgers, CEO, Wood Rodgers.

Some of our customers needed to add cloud desktops and workstations for additional people. For one such customer, it took them 10 minutes to spin up an additional 75 cloud desktops for administration staff. For other customers who have our disaster recovery cloud desktops in place and on standby, it takes even less time. A global law firm sent everyone home, activated 1000 cloud desktops in 2 minutes, and got back to work.

During our recent webinars I have included a polling question about concerns around remote work. Consistently, the top concerns are around security and productivity. While security has always been a good reason to adopt virtual desktops, improved productivity has rarely been a benefit of legacy VDI. But with cloud desktops, that all changes. Workspot’s Cloud Desktop Fabric platform was architected for security that is unmatched by any other vendor, and our cloud desktops, in conjunction with the massive security infrastructure of Microsoft Azure, really can’t be beat when it comes to security.

The bigger surprise though, is around productivity. Many companies have been culturally averse to remote working. Others, as highlighted by our polls, believe that productivity will suffer. The feedback we are hearing directly is that the opposite is true. People have been just as productive, if not moreso. Some of our customers have come to us with data showing increases in productivity. Recent articles, such as this one from Business News Daily, cite studies that show people are more productive working from home. Good news across the board!

Remote Work Downsides

So is there a downside with remote working? Communication can be one. Most of our customers have embraced the use of Microsoft Teams and Zoom for for chat and meetings. Use of web cams is always a bit controversial, since some people are just cranking away and are so productive they don’t take the time to get themselves camera-ready! But it is nice to see your colleagues’ faces once-in-awhile! At Workspot, we’ve moved our company meeting from bi-weekly to weekly, so everyone can connect to hear the latest highlights and share information. Of course, we are heavy users of Teams day-to-day. And we’ve continued our tradition of a weekly Happy Hour each Friday; now we meet on Zoom (web cam required!).

One of our customers, Dudek CIO Brian Nordmann, said “With Workspot cloud workstations, it’s easy to work at home – sometimes too easy. Productivity is stronger than ever, so we are focusing on work/life balance.” Brian points out an interesting challenge: People are so productive at home that many are having difficulty establishing a boundary between work and life. It can be too easy to work all the time.

With the productivity gains Brian’s company has seen, they’ve turned their focus to wellness. Each of us needs reminders to employ healthy behaviors. To that end, the Dudek team gathers each week for a webinar that is focused on various wellness topics, such as healthy eating, getting enough exercise, and more. Brian says, “It has been a great way for the team to stay connected in a non-work environment.” Turns out, the Dudek team is very forward thinking, not only with their commitment to cloud computing, but with their commitment to the well-being of their staff. Many studies show the importance of focusing on work-life balance and managing stress and productivity by taking breaks in a structured way. Here’s a few more tips for wellness and productivity while working from home.

Modernizing Work: What’s Next?

We have all been through many changes in the last several weeks, and it’s interesting to contemplate which changes will become permanent. What does “the modern way to work” look like?  “This is the same speed I have in the office. Why should I go back to the office?” Andy Knauf, CIO at Mead & Hunt foresees a healthy dose of working from home as part of the new normal for work. Some people who were skeptical about working from home now view it completely differently. “People are telling me they are as productive at home as they are in the office – that’s what you want to hear.” The “productivity anywhere” narrative has been around the VDI industry for years, but traditional VDI has never lived up to the hype. Now with high performance cloud desktops and workstations in the public cloud, Workspot customers are seeing measurable productivity gains; a pleasant surprise at a really difficult time. To keep too much productivity from becoming a liability – in the form of overstressed people – one methodology, the Pomodoro Technique, is a time management framework and work methodology that seems particularly timely and is worth a try to keep productivity high and stress at a minimum.

It seems reasonable to anticipate that during the coming months, we will have periods of time where COVID-19 keeps us at home, followed by periods where the virus subsides and people venture out more. Clearly it will be a tricky balancing act. The good news is that for organizations that can continue operations with people working from home, those transitions, back and forth between office and home, will be so easy that it will be the new norm to spend significant stretches of time working at home. When you’re ready, Workspot is ready to help you make the change to the modern way to work, so you can be ready for anything too.

The post Remote Work Surprises: Is Working from Home Too Easy? appeared first on Workspot.

The conversation I want to share with you today is particularly interesting (and hopefully helpful to those of you evaluating cloud desktops) because this customer really did their homework. They evaluated five vendors and ran POCs with two, one of which was Workspot. Here’s the story!

Time to Go Cloud

This global company has developers all over the world, and the company had several reasons for wanting to move away from their on-premises VDI solution. Information security was a primary reason why they decided to use virtual desktops in the first place, and that is a very good reason, but their traditional solution was no longer making sense for them. Like so many organizations, they made a strategic decision to have a cloud-first initiative. They did not want to manage on-premises hardware any longer, nor did they want to continue dealing with the complexity of running a data center and applying precious resources to those tasks. The goal was to streamline all of this so their resources could be more appropriately applied to the core competencies of their business.

While all of this strategic decision-making was happening, it also became clear that the developers and other remote workers using the legacy VDI solution were not at all happy with their non-persistent desktops. That’s because each time you log off a non-persistent desktop, it wipes the slate clean and you get a new virtual desktop when you log back in. There’s nothing personalized about it. Even with profile management software added on, the solution was not satisfactory. It was harder to manage, slower to load and caused a lot more help desk tickets.

Some Serious Due Diligence

The team heading up the evaluation of new approaches to virtual desktops included some folks who are very experienced with VDI solutions, so they planned to really put the options to the test. They identified 5 vendors – the household names in VDI, plus a couple of newer vendors for their evaluation. In short, one vendor was eliminated because they could only support session-based desktops “skinned” to look like Windows 10 desktops. They could not actually support real Windows 10 desktops. The next vendor was eliminated becuase they could not scale adequately and the organization’s team was rather inexperienced in the world of VDI. Another vendor was eliminated because it was just as complex as the old VDI solution. And that left two vendors to move on to the next round: the POC! Workspot had the POC up and running in a few days. Technically we can do it even faster, but IT teams have a ton of competing priorities, so we work closely to get things up and running as fast as possible, given everyone’s schedules.  Meanwhile, vendor X struggled to get their POC running, not because of busy schedules, but because the person working on the project had little expertise, particularly with Azure. Our customer told us that they were very impressed with the expertise and seniority of the Workspot Customer Success team, who had them live with very little work on the customer’s part.

In the end, the customer found Workspot to be functionally superior to vendor X, and the depth of the partnership they experienced, from sales, to POC, to production rollout, was outstanding and exactly what they were looking for. Long story short, Workspot soundly beat 4 competitors to win the privilege of helping transform this company.

Then and Now

What do their results look like so far? Here are the key takeaways:

Simplicity: The IT team loves Workspot’s turnkey service. It has allowed them to dramatically simplify IT operations and use resources more strategically to grow the business. They don’t have to worry about hardware refreshes, storage or managing a data center.

Reduced costs: OpEx is lower because highly valuable engineers are no longer needed to maintain and troubleshoot complex, on-prem VDI. Workspot does the heavy lifting behind the scenes; that’s why the architecture of the solution you choose is really important, and there is literally nothing like Workspot out there.

Security: Because of the nature of the company, they had many information security requirements to meet. Workspot’s architecture is highly secure; unlike other solutions, we separated the control and data planes, and that is a critical move for security. because it means that your data cannot be accessed by us or anyone else. That is Zero Trust security. This is a critical area to understand during your evaluation.

User experience: Cloud desktop users now have a personalized experience with their persistent desktops. They can use the device of their choice, whether it’s a Windows laptop, Mac, iPhone or Android device to access their cloud desktop in Azure anytime, anywhere.

Partnership Matters

I’ve said it before: Workspot is obsessed with customer success. That’s why we’ve built a seasoned Customer Success team consisting of VDI and Azure industry experts who accelerate your success. The difference shows. Our job is to make end-user computing easy for your company so you can get back to your area of expertise and spend time on projects that help grow the business. We work closely with our customers’ in-house IT teams, who can be as hands-on or hands-off as they want during deployment. That’s the beauty of our turnkey cloud desktop service – it just works, so you can leave the cloud desktops to the experts (us!).

Ready to learn more? Schedule a demo and we’ll show you how our turnkey cloud desktop service can change your life!

The post Conversations with Customers: Simplicity & Partnership Set Workspot Apart appeared first on Workspot.

Outdated Technology Slowed Power User Productivity

This fast-growing architecture firm was expanding the number of offices around the country. Remote workers used a VPN to access a remote desktop, but with the heavy BIM and 3D app use that is typical of firms in architecture, engineering, construction, and manufacturing industries, remote desktops were not working well for them. They also tried server-based remote desktops which worked slightly better, but latency and app response ultimately took a toll on power users who really can’t compromise on performance. The solution left these users frustrated and less productive. Not only was it difficult to collaborate on designs with in-house team members, but that difficulty was exacerbated when the project involved joint venture partners and collaboration was needed across firms.

Time for a New Strategy: Cloud-First

Two or three years ago one of the IT leaders at the firm attended an industry conference and connected with a current Workspot customer, where the initial discussion about using Workspot took place. After that initial conversation, the firm went down the path of evaluating and testing several VDI solutions, both from major vendors and from Managed Service Providers. They found all the traditional VDI solutions to be inadequate for meeting their simplicity and agility goals. They were also shocked to see that the upfront cost of VDI was going to be $250K-300K before ever getting their first desktop launched! Even the cloud-based solutions would be difficult for them to manage since they would need Azure expertise and would still need to worry about managing complex infrastructure. As they began to experience faster growth, they realized that the cost and time it took to continue building out physical workstations was not sustainable, nor did it provide the flexibility and agility they needed to take the firm into the future. The decision was made that taking a cloud-first approach to technology acquisition was the right choice, and the firm formally adopted this strategy to become more agile, simplify IT, and support the firm’s accelerating growth. Fast- forward a year and our soon-to-be-new-customer had Workspot in mind when they attended AutoDesk University in 2018. A visit to our booth and speaking sessions provided the details they needed to move forward with a proof-of-concept (POC).

The Workspot Difference

During the POC phase, the firm was able to quickly validate the technology and the go-live services, as well as make sure that performance was going to meet the requirements of their power users. While performance was clearly a gating item, the IT team also came into the project without an Azure experience or skillsets, so they really needed to know that when we say our cloud workstation and desktops service is “turnkey”  – we really mean it. Our customers don’t need any Azure skills, because our platform abstracts all those wonderful services so IT teams don’t have to worry about them. These were all key decision criteria, which no other vendor could meet. Once the POC phase was complete and met their goals, transitioning to production was almost immediate. The Workspot customer success team did all the heavy-lifting required to ensure a successful implementation, yet the IT team was also had access to training and enablement that allows them to stay in control of their environment and respond to new requirements.  This is vastly different than working with an MSP. The customer found this tight partnership with Customer Success to be unique and extremely valuable.

Expansion to New Use Cases

Now that the initial implementation is delivering substantial benefits, the firm is looking to expand Workspot into additional branch offices. They plan to start with those that have the oldest infrastructure as well as offices that are growing quickly. While the firm maintains branch offices around the country, they now have the ability to add people without having to implement IT infrastructure – it’s as easy as spinning up a new cloud workstation, which happens in a few minutes. They can also support anywhere-productivity, whether that means enabling engineers and designers to work from a client site, from home, or a hotel and they can hire new people anywhere in the world. They are no longer constrained by geography, either in who they hire or how they grow. And they are looking forward to introducing Workspot into joint venture projects to improve collaboration and simplify IT operations across the partner firms.

The ability to address all of these complex use cases, better secure IP, and gain the agility to accommodate accelerating growth has been truly transformational for this team. The icing on the cake is that power users, who are no longer tethered to their physical workstations, have the freedom to be creative and productive wherever they are. Meantime, IT is enjoying the rave reviews about Workspot performance, along with reduced costs and simplified IT processes. That’s a formula for success!

Ready to learn more? Schedule a live demo to see how it works.

It’s that time of year again – Autodesk University is happening in Las Vegas November 19-21, 2019, and many of our customers will be there – both IT leaders and end users of Workspot cloud workstations.  Be sure to visit our booth #AE402; you’ll see us as soon as you enter the Expo Hall.

The post Conversations with Customers: Set Power Users Free with Cloud Workstations appeared first on Workspot.

The Workspot Challenge for AU Attendees

Here’s the challenge for CAD managers, BIM managers and other power users in architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing and other industries who are attending AU. It can be a bit boring to see a “generic” product demo, right? However, there’s a good reason why our cloud workstation demos usually elicit a “Wow”. You just won’t really believe it until you see how your own CAD and BIM apps perform, and what it feels like to manipulate your own 3D models on a cloud workstation, and that’s fair enough. So here’s the Workspot Challenge: Put Workspot on your “must-see” list at AU, come by the Workspot booth and bring up one of your 3D models on a cloud workstation and see what you think. After all, the “proof of the pudding” really is in the eating, as they say. That means you have to try it to know if it’s good!

You won’t be able to miss us in the Expo Hall. As soon as you walk in the main entrance, just look straight ahead down the main aisle and you’ll see the Workspot logo.

It’s Way More than Marketing

When you visit us at AU, we’re going to get real. In addition to trying out cloud workstations first-hand, you’ll have the opportunity to meet some of our customers. Many of you know Andy Knauf, CIO of Mead & Hunt, one of ENR’s top 150 consulting firms in the country and also named among the top 25 best civil engineering firms to work for by CE News. Mead & Hunt is on an exciting growth trajectory, which includes periodic acquisitions. The agility the firm has now that they rely on Workspot cloud workstations across the country means that they can respond to the changes that fast growth brings instantly, and they can have new employees and contractors productive in minutes rather than weeks. They have also strengthened their business continuity plan with the built-in disaster recovery that comes with having cloud workstations available across Azure West, Central and East regions. Andy is an IT visionary who generously shares with his peers the wisdom he has gained by being an early adopter of tech that is transforming the AEC industry. In addition to the Workspot Challenge, meeting Andy Knauf and discussing his journey to cloud workstations is the best reason to visit our booth, because Andy will be there!

Watch our latest video featuring Dudek’s drone division.

More Cloud Workstation Goodness in the World

We recently wrapped a new video that highlights our customer, Dudek, a multidisciplinary, environmental consulting firm that helps clients plan, design and build projects that improve both the built and natural infrastructure for communities around the country. When we talk about changing lives, it’s true that Workspot cloud workstations have been transformational in terms of helping Dudek grow. But another life-changing aspect of Dudek’s work stems from their highly successful drone practice, where they are uniquely able to assess damage from natural disasters via the drone imagery they collect. Their work is life-changing because they are able to take those complex images and make them actionable for first responders within hours – that is a significant achievement – and Workspot is very proud to be a part of enabling that great work. If you haven’t already seen CIO Brian Nordmann and his team discuss how they achieve this and why it matters, you can access the video here.

If you’re not attending AU, schedule a demo to see how it works. Either way, let’s start changing some lives!

The post Ready to Try Cloud Workstations at Autodesk University? appeared first on Workspot.

It is often the case that you don’t really know what you’re getting into until you’re in it. At Workspot our commitment to customer success runs deep, but our customers are much better at telling that story than we are.

Legacy VDI is Out

This organization did not want to manage physical desktops any longer, so they turned to a managed service provider who hosted legacy virtual desktops for them. Over time they became increasingly uncomfortable with the implementation for several reasons:

Loss of Control: To effect any change, they had to go through a cumbersome request process that took days or longer, even for the simplest change.

Cost: Legacy VDI is pretty well-known for being expensive, and this company was feeling the pain.

Performance: Unfortunately the performance issues they encountered included everything from network issues and slow connection times, to issues caused by client updates and complete outages.

User Experience: One manager said that upon arriving at her office, she would enter her login credentials and then go grab coffee and breakfast because it took that long for her to gain access to her applications.

Performance issues that lead to poor productivity and full-on outages are costly for any company, but the costs for financial services organizations are shockingly high. Every minute counts and the cost of lost productivity adds up fast. For these and more reasons, it was time for this company to find a better way.

Workspot on Azure is In

The IT team had been begun executing on their cloud-first strategy, and they decided it was time to seek alternatives to the incumbent VDI solution. We often find that desktops are the first workload our customers move to the cloud; then other workloads and data follow. Moving desktops to the cloud is a high return activity and migrating them to Azure using Workspot usually happens in 30-90 days, depending on the competing priorities of the customer’s IT resources.

The team began researching VDI solutions on Microsoft Azure; they discovered Workspot, and from there, the engagement evolved very quickly.

What IT Thinks Now

The IT team had an overall great experience from the sales process all the way through to production. That is really nice for the Workspot team to hear! The IT manager found it “very simple” to generate the templates they needed and then create the virtual machines. Throughout the go-live process, the Workspot Customer Success team was there to help. “Their responsiveness is really great. We always knew there was an individual we could reach out to and they would get back to me right away. It is greatly appreciated.” They also found the training process to be very helpful and they felt well-prepared to go live. They found the documentation Workspot provides to be really useful and easy to consume as well, so much so that they can find the answers to most of their questions without contacting Workspot support. They were “really confident that what we signed on for is what we were getting.” Today, the IT manager reports that he is pleased to “have the control I need to make changes easily and quickly to support the business. Recently I rolled out 16 new cloud desktops in a few minutes.” Always wanting to hear both the good and the bad about a customer’s experience with us, I asked them if there was anything we could do better, and the IT manager said “Hmmm. I’ll have to get back to you on that.” They do have one feature request for Disaster Recovery Cloud, and we were happy to be able to share that it’s already on a short-term roadmap.

What Users Think Now

Users have been pretty quiet – and apparently, that’s a good thing! They were up and running fast and became familiar with Windows 10 quickly. There was literally zero learning curve for Workspot. The Workspot client is elegant, simple, and blazing fast. Feedback so far is that users are amazed at how fast they can connect and open files. It no longer “takes forever” to connect and there’s no more sitting around and waiting for files to open. Response times are great, so everyone is more productive than before. Users should not have to worry about the technology behind the scenes (in this case, in the cloud); what they need is fast, reliable access to their apps and data that just works, and that’s exactly what they have today!

The Workspot Difference

In a recent blog we talked about our Customer Success DNA and how that impacts our customer engagements every day. This customer conversation brings the discussion of goals alignment to life, and we couldn’t be happier that this company really feels our commitment – in all of our ongoing interactions – to making them successful.

If you‘re ready to learn more about how cloud VDI is transforming enterprises, schedule a demo. We’d love to hear about your unique requirements and help you reach your business growth objectives.

The post Workspot Conversations with Customers: Cloud VDI Love at First Sight appeared first on Workspot.