In today’s unpredictable business world, ensuring a cost-efficient, secure, and effective way to support remote/hybrid workforces has become the need of the hour for every organization. Fortunately, Microsoft has helped negotiate some complexities with its year-old offering = Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD). Whether letting employees work from home, managing several flex spaces pan-region, or onboarding people across continents, AVD offers businesses the same desktop experience as in the offices without using multiple apps and log-ins.

We have data that cement AVD’s credibility in today’s workplace transformation. A Forrester Consulting study (commissioned by Intel and Microsoft) finds that businesses can:

• Trim Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) licensing and infrastructure expenses by almost a third.
• Cut down their IT expenses for installation, maintenance, and management by 59%.
• Boost productivity by around 22 human hours through better connectivity, security response, and staff hiring.

In this article, we will explain how AVD is making inroads into various industries.

Manufacturing Industry – AVD Helps Shrink Hardware Costs

In manufacturing, production costs consume the bulk of the budget. Higher costs translate to lesser profit margin and eventually lesser market share. Besides, the industry houses a high volume of workers, unlike typical office-based jobs. These workers barely need to turn to IT devices at the same time.

In such circumstances, AVD can help manufacturing businesses boost their profits and bottom line. The virtualization tech enables employees to log into their persistent virtual desktops from the same machine when they need to get started. This means that manufacturing firms can operate with fewer devices with AVD. This significantly caps software and hardware costs without keeping enterprises’ security posture at stake.

BFSI Industry – AVD Adds Muscle to IT Security

Banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) firms are always security-conscious, and for a valid reason, as digital intrusions into financial institutions can cost millions (or at times billions) of dollars. Worse, even a single cyber-attack weakens consumers’ trust over the long run and compels potential customers to look for other financial service companies.

Azure Virtual Desktop protects financial institutions from costly breaches by securing all confidential employee and customer data. Case in point, AVD enables IT crews to deploy PCI-DSS-approved (Payment Card Industry-Data Security Standard) devices. These virtual devices are accessible from any remote system securing data transfer and operations even if contract-based workers are performing them. Furthermore, BFSI companies can restrict user activity on a virtual machine (VM) in order to prevent unauthorized access to or transfer of information.

Legal Industry – AVD Keeps a Check on Cyberattacks

Like BFSI service providers, law firms are also soft targets for threat actors, given the amount of cash and classified data they preserve. As such, legal companies are always in dire need of secure, high-throughput systems that can access and store data reliably. Thanks to AVD’s multi-layered security features, law firms can strengthen their cybersecurity walls, thus slashing the odds of enduring cyberattacks. At the same time, employees can access critical documents no matter where they are or what device they are using and keep up with the ever-changing work demands.

Education – AVD Facilitates BYOD Experiences

Technology has become indispensable to educational institutions, particularly in the post-COVID economy. Particularly in schools, assigning devices and systems to each student is challenging as updating the hardware is a cost-intensive affair.

Moreover, effective learning demands high-end machines. Unfortunately, not all educational establishments can afford computers with the latest features. Although some schools allow students to learn from their devices, also called bring your own device (BYOD), this can pose serious security threats.

AVD helps colleges and schools install and run VMs with up-to-the-minute software without squandering on hardware. And they can achieve this with reduced computing power as the processing power sprouts from the VDI. Likewise, in the case of BYOD programs, AVD offers teachers and professors an eagle-eye view of students’ activities, regardless of the device in use. Further, these end-user devices receive the same optimized security as an institution-issued system.

Healthcare Industry – AVD Helps Remain Compliant

Data confidentiality is a pillar of all industries, and healthcare is no exception. Strict norms, like the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), mandate healthcare institutions to preserve patient and staff records. As such, keeping this information in insecure systems is a ticking time bomb. If any data leak occurs, the healthcare organization will have to bear hefty penalties while losing its authenticity.

With Azure Virtual Desktop, healthcare businesses can define permissions and rules, giving access to classified data to only specific stakeholders. Moreover, no data resides in the devices but instead on Azure cloud. Microsoft Azure boasts some of the most reliable data repositories, further complemented by multi-factor authentication and comprehensive threat management to ensure all relevant records are in safe places.

Given the feature-rich stack, AVD helps make devices and systems in healthcare organizations compliant, thus freeing up IT admins from worrying about local data storage and security practices.

Bring Sea Changes in the IT Fabric with AVD

Looking to power up remote or hybrid work? Azure Virtual Desktop can come to the rescue. Enterprises, irrespective of the sector, deploying AVD is well-placed to enjoy umpteen benefits in the form of flexibility, security, scalability, and cost savings.

Companies should examine their existing needs to decide whether AVD can be the missing piece of their IT infrastructure puzzle. A better option: connect with a managed service provider (MSP) like Anunta.

Anunta is a leading and credible Managed Desktop as a Service provider that offers a wide range of solutions and services related to Enterprise DaaS (Anunta Desktop360), Packaged DaaS, and Digital Workspace technology. Anunta’s team has over 10 years of experience in this field and has successfully migrated over 600,000+ remote desktop users to the cloud. To learn more about AVD, its benefits, and our services, consult with our industry experts.