Remote working is no longer a short-term solution to working under Covid-19 regulations. Your IT team is now tasked with ensuring the long-term success of the dispersed workforce as your business embraces permanent remote or hybrid working.

But maintaining the simplicity, standardisation and security experienced in the centralised office environment can be challenging in a remote environment. You need a modern solution that can provide the high-performance needed for the modern workforce and one that can remove the complexity from managing and scaling IT for remote workers.

This guide will explain how a best-in-class cloud-based VDI solution, like Pulsant Cloud Desktop, can remove the risk and complexity associated with IT management and maintenance of a dispersed workforce, helping your team to succeed in this new working environment, whilst enabling a high-performance workforce. In particular, it will cover the following factors:

• Simplify: How to simplify management and maintenance of dispersed workgroups
• Standardise: How to deliver a consistent experience across multiple devices and locations
• Secure: How to maintain security, compliance and business continuity outside of the office environment
• Succeed: How to guarantee a high-performance dispersed workforce where staff can work remotely without limits

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An aim of organisations across industries during the remote working era has been to ensure that their employees can provide the same level of output and consistent quality of work that was previously possible in the office. Research by Mercer found that 94% of 800 employers reported the same or higher level of productivity than before the pandemic, even with employees working remotely. While this evidence shows that employees can successfully make the shift, the responsibility sits with the employer to ensure that the tools are available to enable this productivity.

Employee expectations

Younger people entering the workforce today are increasingly unlikely to remember a time where others were not instantly reachable, creating certain expectations that employers should provide the right communications technology, whether in or out of the office. Employees are now expecting a consistent desktop performance and true accessibility, regardless of the device used and where they are based.

But for in-house IT teams, it isn’t always so simple to provide this experience. Ensuring that desktops are fully up to date can be a time-consuming and costly challenge, in addition to the user support and ongoing maintenance of servers and storage that needs to be provided. This management of hardware and software compatibility can prove overwhelming, leading to difficulties with prioritising IT fixes and leading to inconsistent employee experiences.

 Traditional VDI solutions

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is a technology that has been available for some time and allows a managed desktop solution to be provided to employees. Legacy VDI solutions are however fraught with issues, such as being incompatible with applications and delivering a slow and inconsistent user experience via a lookalike operating system.

While VDI has come along way in recent years, such as modern cloud-based solutions, it still requires the specialist knowledge and resources of an in-house IT team to ensure it is fully consistent and readily available for each employee. With this in mind, how can businesses best utilise a VDI solution to provide that all-important employee experience on a consistent basis? Pulsant Cloud Desktop is the modern VDI that can address these challenges.

 Enabling consistency

In leveraging trusted Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops technology, Pulsant Cloud Desktop performs all processing in the data centre, ensuring a consistent level of performance for every user, even in the case of a low-spec or outdated device. Users also benefit from use of native Windows 10 and single sign-on capabilities, ensuring that they can access their work tools quickly and efficiently.

Looking at the case of commercial law firm Teacher Stern, the organisation required a new IT infrastructure to replace its ageing solution, and worked closely with Pulsant to integrate a remote desktop solution that was delivered via Pulsant Enterprise Cloud. The enhanced connectivity that resulted from the arrangement allowed fee earners quick uninterrupted access to systems and applications from any device.

Looking to find out more on how to ensure a consistent experience for your dispersed workforce? Download our guide: “Optimising IT for Remote Workers with Cloud-Based VDI”

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While the rapid rollout of the vaccination programme has provided hope of a return to a pre-2020 world, the move to remote working due to the Covid-19 pandemic will be a mainstay for many organisations. In fact, 98% of people want to work from home for at least part of their working week for the remainder of their careers, according to a survey by the World Economic Forum. But to continue with a long-term strategy of a dispersed workforce in place and to reap the benefits it brings, businesses need to fully optimise the management and maintenance of their desktop platforms to support their employees.

In-house challenges

Deployment, configuration and management of desktop solutions can be a complex process, with considerations such as patch management, user support, updates and minimising latency between applications based in the data centre. Not only that, but the resultant ongoing maintenance of networking, storage and servers can prove to be an overwhelming responsibility for in-house IT teams. 45% of IT professionals who leave the industry do so because of stress, undoubtedly exacerbated by the pressures associated with the pandemic.

So what are the options on the table to help ease the burden on IT professionals while continuing to support the dispersed workforce? There are plenty of cloud desktop solutions on the market that can ease some of the burden, such as hosting a desktop solution with Azure, but this still involves comprehensive in-house management of the technology and specialist knowledge to ensure that it is fully optimised, which is where a managed Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solution comes in.

The benefits of a managed solution

Opting for a managed solution with a service provider means that IT teams don’t have to worry about rack space, hardware breakdown or maintenance. Pulsant’s Cloud Desktop, in conjunction with Citrix technology, allows centralised management of the VDI platform, from configuration of the operating system to flexibility to easily scale up down depending on the number of users.

For organisations utilising a BYOD policy for remote employees, the solution is compatible with all major mobile OS systems and ensures a consistent user interface across each device, while users benefit from faster and more reliable access to applications with guaranteed availability SLAs and enhanced performance.

Security has moved to the forefront of IT teams’ concerns with workplace devices now being managed remotely. At the outset of the pandemic, 52% of organisations determined that they were only somewhat prepared in terms of security resource when making the shift to remote working. Pulsant Cloud Desktop ensures unnecessary security risks are mitigated and compliance across the workforce is maintained with a secure-by-design VDI, while the service is ISO 27001 accredited and UK-based.

Management and maintenance of the dispersed workforce can be a minefield, but Pulsant Cloud Desktop removes the risk and complexity that could otherwise result from an in-house strategy. Discover more in our comprehensive guide: “Optimising IT for Remote Workers with Cloud-Based VDI”

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Enabling a high performance dispersed workforce

While Covid-19 has forced businesses to adapt to remote work, it is no longer seen as just a short term fix to helping businesses navigate the pandemic. Many organisations are now choosing to keep their remote working policies in place permanently or are moving to hybrid working models where employees can work flexibly between home and the office.

How businesses manage their IT will need to change to accommodate these new working models. One of the biggest factors IT teams need to consider is enabling high performance across the business. Performance across the dispersed workforce can be a significant challenge, with users in different roles requiring different levels of compute power and access to applications that are unique to their requirements.

A Cloud Desktop, also known as a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) or Desktop as a Service (DaaS) can help the IT team solve the performance challenges a business might face with remote or hybrid working. It does this by delivering virtual desktops and applications from the cloud on any company device in any location.

Improving performance with dedicated virtual machines

A typical Cloud Desktop helps to ensure high performance from the dispersed workforce by allowing users to access virtual desktops, applications and files. However, it is important to choose a solution that provides dedicated virtual machines for each user rather than users having to share. When users share virtual machines, the performance of one user’s desktop might be negatively impacted by other users demanding more computing power. Dedicated virtual machines ensure each user has enough computing power to perform their role uninhibited by technology issues.

Scaling up for more intensive user demands

Importantly, having dedicated virtual machines means there are no hardware upgrades required when a user needs to use a new application or their requirements call for a higher performance machine.  Virtual machines can be scaled up easily as and when they’re required, eliminating any delays in users being able to use the applications they need when they lack computing power. This also reduces the chances of the applications running inefficiently.

Reducing latency between desktops and applications

When it comes to running applications virtually, users can experience latency between the servers that are running their desktops and the servers running their applications. A Cloud Desktop solution that hosts the desktop infrastructure and applications in the same data centre can reduce this latency as traffic between the virtual desktop and applications take place inside the data centre and not through the connection between the data centre and the user’s device. This improves application responsiveness and leads to better overall performance.

Consistent performance with Pulsant Cloud Desktop

For many organisations, remote work is the future. Virtual desktops are the future of remote work and Pulsant Cloud Desktop removes the risk and complexity associated with managing a dispersed workforce by simplifying deployment, management and maintenance of multiple devices and remote workers through cloud-based VDI.

Find out more about how Pulsant Cloud Desktop can help your IT team simplify, standardise and secure IT in the dispersed workplace by reading our guide, “Optimising IT for Remote Workers with Cloud-Based VDI”.

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Join us at a North East England Chamber of Commerce breakfast on 12 March where we’ll be tackling business resilience and continuity. Chris Shields, our Regional Director, will be delivering an insightful presentation that addresses:

• The specifics of what to include in a business continuity plan
• How to spot a disaster before it happens
• How to manage risk
• When to switch to reserve systems.

Disruption can be a challenge, but it doesn’t have to be a disaster.

Join us for this great event to find out if your continuity and recovery plans are working for your business.

Details

Time & date:

08:30 Thursday 12 March

Location:

Crowne Plaza Newcastle – Stephenson Quarter
Forth Street
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 3SA

Register now to reserve your space

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Snapshot

Cintra is an award-winning provider of HR and payroll services to over 900 happy customers. The company provides a range of solutions, including fully outsourced payroll, in-house or hosted HR and payroll services, and bespoke, hybrid solutions. Established in 1981, the company is head quartered in Gateshead, Tyne & Wear and employs more than 100 staff.

Challenge
More than 250,000 people are paid every month using a Cintra solution. A large percentage of clients use Cintra’s outsourced services, to ensure that their employees are paid correctly and on time – failure to perform is simply not an option. Payroll is a heavily regulated industry and compliance is always high on Cintra’s agenda. As a BACS accredited, ISO9001 certified and ISAE 3402 company, Cintra’s disaster recovery processes are constantly reviewed to make sure that its exemplary service can withstand any form of disaster. Continually looking to improve this area saw Cintra turn to Pulsant, to take its disaster recovery capability to the next level.

Pulsant solution
Pulsant worked with Cintra to design and implement a 35-seat workplace recovery service that met the HR and payroll company’s strict security, availability and testing requirements. The service is also scalable to accommodate all staff, if necessary.

Results
Cintra has total peace of mind that, in the event its internal line of business systems, outsourced bureau operations or offices are inaccessible, it can remain operational. No matter the disruption, Cintra has the ability to be back up and running at Pulsant’s workplace recovery site within an hour. The solution enables staff to deliver business critical services to clients and fulfils the requirements of Cintra’s frequent compliance audits.

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At Pulsant, we see many of our customers moving to more cloud-enabled technology environments, removing the limits and barriers imposed by legacy IT systems and practices. One of the areas we see as central to maintaining an effective hybrid hosting solution, is through business continuity and disaster recovery. Cloud has enabled the creation of many new technologies that make disaster recovery a simple and resilient solution to minimising IT service disruption. The key is understanding how to best plan, structure and consume your disaster recovery service, for better cost-effectiveness and service delivery.

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With organisations becoming increasingly reliant on their data to operate business as usual, the threats to business continuity and ensuring an affective contingency plan is in place to ensure operations run with the minimum of disruption should a disaster strike are more important than ever. With the advancements of technology and the reduction in costs, business continuity is an essential component that every business that relies on their data should have in place.

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