The Role of Virtualization in the New Hybrid Work Era

What happens when a temporary business situation becomes the new normal?

Many firms are exploring this as the reality of remote work develops into a more permanent condition owing to the advancement of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s now an increasingly pressing business goal to build iron-clad methods for allowing the greatest possible remote work situations and equip users with technologies that minimize disturbance to processes and enhance their capacity to work to their maximum potential.

Remote work situations may be potential boons for employee happiness and productivity, although this rests on the efficiency of the remote work strategy and how technology is implemented to improve remote work settings and complement remote work experiences.

Many observers feel that we’re in the middle of a chance to change employment in the long run. But to do so, enterprises have to employ agile technologies, such as virtual applications and desktops, that easily integrate into a user’s work environment.

Creating an optimum remote work environment today may help firms better prepare for a future that’s anticipated to put increasing emphasis on the wider responsibilities of knowledge workers, and the rising remote work needs of younger generations.

As the pillars of an optimized remote workplace environment start to even further take hold in light of recent times, organizations must quickly take advantage of the opportunity to distinguish the remote professional experience with virtualization techniques that simplify common remote work obstacles and encourage more user-friendly future tech interactions.

Current State of Hybrid Work

How successfully firms adjust to remote working conditions may impact the efficacy of their reaction to adverse events, such as the pandemic. Workforce continuity is crucial in these sorts of occurrences. To sustain employee experience and company continuity, technology, plus business executives must design organized, flexible work styles that assist generate remote work muscle memory.

Research reveals that the need for a structured, long-term remote work plan is an increasing business need as firms try to expand remote work in the post-pandemic period. Stanford University economist, Nicholas Bloom, expects the “working-from-home economy” in the U.S. would survive long beyond the epidemic. And 83 percent of firms are thinking about using variable work choices, including remote work, to a bigger level than previous to the epidemic, according to HR consultancy company Mercer.

Effective remote work models foster agility and should promote company continuity via continuous processes, as well as increased employee engagement and retention. This needs smart technology that enables workers to operate productively and quickly access work applications.

Virtualization is becoming more prevalent in this domain since it boosts new digital workplaces such as desktop virtualization, which allows users to access virtual desktops through a connected device. It is reliant on application virtualization, which allows workers to access an application from a device other than the one on which the program is installed.

With the rising trend of transferring business workloads to the cloud, enterprises may benefit from more flexible remote work models via app and desktop virtualization solutions.

Important Criteria for Virtualization Solutions

According to a recent Gartner poll, 54% of HR executives see insufficient technology and/or infrastructure for remote work settings as the primary impediment to efficient remote work.

Simple and performance-driven virtualization solutions are critical, the latter being particularly critical since users do not want to deal with performance difficulties that impair their job productivity. Additionally, the solution should be capable of coping with difficult network connections, which is crucial in remote work circumstances.

Performance should not be sacrificed for insufficient protection; security must be emphasized as virtual data exchanges expand and users operate remotely with potentially untrusted equipment. Businesses must prioritize data security, which is why it is critical that a virtualization solution has a context-aware security architecture that restricts access based on the context. This has resulted in a greater focus on data protection features such as watermarking, which makes data exfiltration more difficult.

Additionally, firms should consider the viewpoint of the IT administrator. IT administrators, too, want simplicity, which is why Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) solutions, which are virtual desktop platforms housed in the cloud, are gaining favor. In an ideal world, this sort of solution would enable IT administrators to quickly deploy a fully hosted cloud desktop, independent of their level of cloud or DaaS experience.

Key Considerations for Optimized Virtualization Solutions

To join or progress the remote work revolution, there are some critical considerations to consider while assessing virtualization solutions:

• Develop an agile approach that does not impose restrictions on the location of applications, the platforms on which they are hosted, or the types of apps that may be given to workers.
• Acknowledge that web, SaaS, plus mobile applications now comprise a significant portion of all contemporary digital workplaces.
• Strive to create a unified solution that is simple to administer and capable of managing several apps from a single place.

For enterprises migrating operations to the cloud, there are several factors to consider, both from a migration strategy and cost-cutting perspective:

• Move workloads progressively and keep an eye on the total cost of ownership.
• Begin with simpler use cases and include a contingency plan.
• Select an agile platform that incorporates analytics and allows a business to move at its own speed.
• Ascertain that the app and desktop virtualized solution assists in optimizing cloud expenditures via features such as auto-scaling.

From an IT administrator’s perspective, the following characteristics should be considered while maintaining and configuring a virtualization system architecture:

• The front-end of the program, or the area with which workers or users interact directly, should be tightly coupled with the back-end.
• Separating portions of the application into the cloud and others into the data center may result in increased network latency, affecting end users.
• The network traffic generated by the application during runtime may potentially have a financial effect since cloud egress traffic might be costly.

Businesses interested in virtualizing their applications are advised to “think and act employee-centrically, prioritize their business concerns, and then utilize technology to address these problems while designing a workplace.”

Additionally, it is critical to understand how workers presently work and to include them in the process of developing a remote work strategy using approaches such as design thinking. This provides an opportunity for everyone to reconsider what an ideal workstation should include. So, if you’re planning to create an effective hybrid work model for your employees and need the support of virtualization, contact our experts at Accops. With years of experience under our belt, we’ll help you with the best solutions and create effective processes that not only increasing productivity, but employee satisfaction as well.