Curious to see if any organization has adopted a virtual desktop strategy for employees; was it across the board or for certain set of employees? What end-user hardware were used i.e. mobile thin clients or full desktop/laptop? How did you achieve the transition, what was the user acceptance rate?
Sort by:
We implemented Citrix Thin Client since a long time ago (2001). We enabled critical employees to access the company resources using thin client software on their own laptops/desktop. At that time, we paid an allowance for employees to use their own devices to access the company resources. During COVID we upgraded the VDI infrastructure and had a policy to use laptops for all employees (since 2018). Employees were able to use the software in their company laptop to access the company resources.
At a time when COVID made it difficult to procure physical laptops, we thought about VDI. As a result, VDI was used mainly by the system companies that work for our company. Or some employees who need to get a new laptop in a hurry are using VDI.
Virtual Desktop using Citrix - VDI is for 3rd Parties for support and it is easier to provide VDI for people working remotely.
We are full VDI via Citrix for our end users. We've been VDI for a long time (early 2000s) and recently transitioned from thin clients to windows devices and from XenApp to XenDesktop. We found that thin clients were generally behind the innovation curve and get the newest features last. We also found they did not have the horsepower to support full content redirection in the age of endless Teams meetings. Our Windows devices are stripped down versions of Windows and locked down tight which effectively makes them a "Windows based Thin-Client". Like anything else, there are tradeoffs... There is a layer of abstraction to the user experience that causes friction and can be perceived as a pain. But, in general, we find it to be the best delivery mechanism for our operational and security needs. Watch out for TCO: VDI used to be a less expensive desktop delivery model and was part of the justification, but that is no longer true.