Virtual Desktops Help Business Transition into a Secure Remote Workplace

How Virtual Desktops Can Help Your Business Transition into a Secure Remote Workplace

For many small businesses, the physical office defined their workplace until the pandemic of 2020 forced many companies to change the way they worked. Social distancing forced owners to consider remote work policies for the very first time. There were concerns about productivity and security, but for many businesses, the transition happened quickly and without a lot of forethought. Then problems arose, and owners needed to find new ways to work remotely.

Working in the Traditional Office Environment

ABC Business Services (a fictional company) had a traditional office environment. Employees came into work and spent eight or so hours at their desk, then went home. They used software applications installed on their desktops. Data was installed on their hard-wired network and backed up by on-premise storage devices. If an employee needed to work from home, they were provided a virtual private network (VPN) and used remote desktop software to connect to their desktop. The system wasn’t perfect, but it worked. That was until the great pandemic of 2020 forced all ABC employees to work from home. The transition went smoothly at first; then, some employees complained about connection speeds, slow processing time, and difficulty using desktop applications through remote desktop software. Then one day, the power went out in the office and all of the employees lost their connections. Somebody had to go into the office to turn on the computers, but nobody could enter the office. The business owner volunteered to go in and turn the computers back on. There had to be a better way. The owner instructed the Office Manager to find a solution that wouldn’t cost a lot of money.

Joanne, ABC’s Office Manager, reached out to Atlantic-IT for help. The Atlantic-IT team conducted a complete IT assessment and suggested transitioning to a cloud-based work environment and setting up virtual desktops.

Benefits of a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

Joanne was familiar with SaaS-based applications. She had used Office 365, Microsoft Teams, and Quickbooks Online at a previous employer. She supported the decision but didn’t understand what virtual desktops were. The Atlantic-IT team explained that virtual desktops looked and acted like traditional computer desktops. Still, employees could use their personal laptops at home, and they had complete access to all data, email and other desktop applications. But Joanne was concerned about security and costs. She read stories about other small businesses getting ransomware attacks and paying thousands of dollars to unlock their network. The Atlantic-IT team explained how the cloud storage providers offered around-the-clock security. The Atlantic team would also monitor their network and emails to prevent potential cyber-attacks. They would back up the entire virtual network on a regular basis. If there was a ransomware attack, the business would be back online in a few minutes. If an employee was terminated they could have confidence that the employee no longer had access to company assets.

As far as costs were concerned, ABC would pay on a monthly subscription basis. Costs depended on the number of virtual desktops and how much data they used. However, the long term savings of no longer having to purchase expensive hardware, constantly refreshing equipment or upgrading operating systems, and licensing would save ABC company thousands of dollars.

Flexibility and Scalability of Virtual Desktops

Joanne presented the Atlantic-IT proposal to the business owner, who had several questions. What happened if the company grew? The Atlantic engineer explained the cloud-service provider could scale up or down without any problems with incremental costs. They had proprietary software. Could they keep those applications on their on-premise network? The engineer explained they could use a hybrid model and set-up virtual desktops within their own IT network. The employees wouldn’t know the difference and access those applications through the cloud connection.

Smooth Transition to a Remote Workplace

Joanne and the business owner agreed to move forward with the Atlantic-IT proposal. They liked how the virtual desktops would help their employees be more productive and secure in a remote workplace. They also liked that the migration would be minimal downtime to transition to this solution and no longer bound by local servers, power, internet conditions in their onsite offices. Visit Atlantic-IT at www.atlantic-it.net or call at (877) 936-3328 to learn more..