Cloud

Virtual Desktop as a Service Is Key to State and Local Agencies’ Hybrid Work Plans

As the nature of government work evolves to be more flexible, agencies should invest in next-generation DaaS solutions.

Rick Rosenburg is the vice president and general manager of Rackspace government solutions at Rackspace Government. He oversees services in support of government agencies and holds 35 years of leadership experience across companies that have supported the federal government’s technology needs. Prior to Rackspace, he held leadership roles at NTT Data Services, Seros and Dell Services Federal Government.

In volatile and uncertain times, such as during the coronavirus pandemic, public sector organizations need reliable productivity technology. Mission-critical workloads and sensitive enterprise data can’t be left vulnerable, and protecting them requires robust computing resources.

As public sector organizations continue to fortify and mature their desktop virtualization strategies for the new world of remote work, security and scalability are major concerns.

For government agencies at all levels, and at the state and local levels in particular, governments needed to accelerate modernization efforts to support the new way of working. Many state and local governments were working on decades-old mainframes and had to migrate solutions as quickly as possible.

The pandemic has driven home the need to accelerate application modernization, and solutions such as virtual desktops have emerged as a critical part of the equation. As state and local agencies seek to build new work policies, the consensus is that remote work and the technology to securely enable it are here to stay. But how can state and local agencies implement increasingly complex systems to support virtual work for the long haul? Next-generation virtual Desktop as a Service environments are an essential part of the answer.

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The Benefits of Virtual Desktop as a Service for Agencies

While “X as a service” models commonplace among many technology teams in the public sector and beyond, virtual Desktop as a Service allows agency teams to partner with providers to design a work-from-anywhere strategy for the agency’s workforce. Agencies can deploy the specialized desktop solution at scale to design, build and create an overall strategy. Once deployed, agencies can streamline infrastructure, services and solutions by continuing to use their partners to achieve success.

As public sector organizations continue to fortify and mature their desktop virtualization strategies for the new world of remote work, security, scalability and management burden are major concerns. Virtual Desktop as a Service solutions are helping address these issues.

There are numerous benefits to virtual Desktop as a Service solutions. They boost productivity, increase flexibility, elevate IT teams’ efficiency, deliver a superior user experience and help solve workforce optimization challenges. Additionally, they promote overall productivity, as workers can access key applications anytime, anywhere, and from any device. IT teams can work more efficiently while delivering a superior user experience without declines in latency when the virtual desktop is in the same environment as cloud applications.

Further, certain virtual Desktop as a Service providers have extensive experience with companies such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft and provide remote workers with unique offerings, such as an end-user experience that minimizes disruption. For example, Amazon WorkSpaces is a managed Desktop as a Service offering that enables users to securely access the applications, documents and resources they need from anywhere on their mobile devices. It provides a simple, cost-effective, familiar desktop experience globally, with enhanced security and simplified management.

Another example of this offering is Work Anywhere Solutions, a virtual desktop environment built on industry-leading cloud technologies, powered by Azure infrastructure and available in the cloud anywhere. The offering provides an easy and quick transition into Microsoft 365 tools, combined with the security of the Microsoft Azure cloud and expertise from experienced partners.

Remote workers increase the threat surface, which is a significant concern in today’s environment, where government entities are key targets for hackers looking to spread ransomware — or worse. Virtual Desktop as a Service has security baked in, providing transparency across the entire virtual landscape to monitor organizational resources and internal usage and to see — and stop — external threats.

EXPLORE: How will remote work tools help government agencies recruit talent?

The Future of Virtual Work in Government

The pandemic has revolutionized the way we work, and the future of work continues to evolve. While governments have undergone tremendous modernization within the past year and a half, there is still work to be done to reach premium digital service delivery.

State and local government as we know it has changed, and many virtual services have become commonplace. With hybrid and virtual work here to stay, virtual Desktop as a Service is gaining traction, and for good reason.

State and local organizations are looking at how to sustain and modernize their hybrid work strategies and environments for the long term, and virtual Desktop as a Service is a critical link

Investing in virtual Desktop as a Service solutions will allow public sector organizations to accelerate their virtual workforce strategies and journeys and securely enable remote and hybrid workforce and education capabilities.

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