Virtual Desktop Advice from Monitis
One of the great Cloud trends today is the growth of desktop mobility — the ability for your company’s employees to access their desktop from anywhere in the world. That promotes efficiency and reduces corporate costs.
But should you assume that because you’ve made all your desktops mobile or virtual that that’s the end of your IT challenges? I guess you’ve figured out that the answer to that question is “no.”
Consider first the issue of connectivity. Does your cloud service provider have a good record of providing consistent up-time? It’s a pretty tough spot to be in when your employees start calling into IT saying: “Hey, my cloud desktop just went poof!”
My advice would be to go with a service provider with a diverse access infrastructure. You may consider working with a provider who can offer desktop caching. This way, you add mobility: users can take their physical desktop out on the road with them (let’s say, if they’re planning to work from 30,000 feet inside a 747) and then sync up with the cloud the next time they’re near a LAN, WAN or Internet/VPN service, advice that also comes from an article I read recently.
Wake up! Your Cloud is Crashing!
To keep your employees connected, I also recommend employing a warning device in the way of a 24/7 cloud-based monitoring tool. This will notify you if your cloud provider goes down — and with it your apps and database. These notifications can be sent to you, the IT pro, in just about any form you want, for example, email, Twitter, text, or even cell phone (for those late night notices, ugh!).
And lastly, notifications sent via the Cloud work even when your network is down, and they go through firewalls. So, there’s no chance you won’t find out something needs fixing — and fast!
Happy virtual desk-topping!
