Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is a technology that refers to the use of virtual machines to provide and manage virtual desktops. Users access virtual desktops from their laptops, desktops, thin clients, or mobile devices from anywhere. Virtual desktops are hosted in a data center, on servers, and all the necessary processing is done on the server that hosts the virtual desktops.

The complexity of today’s workplace technology means that all of our environments are incredibly unique. Two organizations may use the same platforms and applications, but the tactics we use to implement these tools are all unique to our own goals and business needs. But all of us who work in IT and engineering can agree: our companies’ success hinges on our ability to keep our environments running smoothly. I’m a senior engineer at the pharmaceutical company AbbVie.

I’m excited to be able to announce the availability of the new eG Enterprise Express Logon Simulator for AVD that now provides any AVD administrator with a no-risk, powerful “synthetic” monitoring tool to track logon performance and failures.Slow logon performance has been one of the most challenging user complaints that VDI and digital workspace administrators and support teams have to deal with.

Recently, we hosted a great joint webinar with the team from AVD TechFest to present the results of a survey we conducted jointly to assess real-world Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) usage and industry and customer sentiments towards the AVD technologies. Alongside myself, Peter Claridge from eG Innovations and Simon Binder, digital workplace architect at Cygate and co-founder of the community-oriented AVD TechFest, were answering Azure Virtual Desktop questions.

This blog was originally posted by Microsoft MVP Theresa Miller to her blog, 24×7 IT Connection. Organizations are migrating their desktops to the cloud as a long-term future state and Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) is a common implementation choice. Technology migrations can be complex to plan and execute on. Today let’s look more closely at some common AVD use case scenarios and then dive into the top 4 best practices for a successful migration to AVD.

IaC (Infrastructure-as-Code) is becoming ubiquitous in the EUC (End User Computing) community and within the datacenter. Automation and declarative infrastructure for on-premises VDI and cloud digital workspaces, such as Microsoft AVD (Azure Virtual Desktop) or AWS WorkSpaces, is now mainstream. Vendors such as Citrix now advocate the use of technologies such as Terraform and Ansible for deployments.

In today’s world of flexible work, technology has to be one thing above all else: versatile. A decade ago, virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI) wouldn’t have been able to meet this moment – VDI used to be too narrow and restricted in terms of what use cases it could service. Fortunately, VDI has evolved dramatically since those days. Now, with the right resources, there’s very little you can’t accomplish through virtual desktops.

Back in 2007, when the VMware team was outlining the benefits of virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), our presentations included a very specific use case: “global pandemic”. No, we didn’t have a crystal ball through which we could foresee the COVID crisis, more than a decade in advance. But even back then, we were looking at the security benefits of VDI, if global health crisis did suddenly force workforces to go remote.

Desktop Virtualization solutions aren’t new to today’s organizations; countless IT teams have implemented some form of virtualization to provide better and more consistent experiences to employees. But during the rise of remote and hybrid working, virtualization has become even more ubiquitous. We recently sat down with Teodor Olteanu, Senior Delivery Manager, Workplace Technology Engineering at Flutter Entertainment, a leading global sports betting, gaming and entertainment organization.

Here’s a direct quote from an IT Manager I spoke with recently: “We’ve been using virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) for a large percentage of employees for a few years now, but between you and me, it’s been a mess.