The market research shows that the Global Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) market is expected to have a CAGR of 27% during the forecast period 2016-2023.
The desktop virtualization market is growing daily with advancements in solutions like BYOD & the digital workplace. Hosted VDI volume is high in developed countries like the USA & UK, but many countries in Asia are also establishing their VDI market with speed. People are retiring traditional ways of working & implementing new practices by adopting cloud hosted desktop (VDI) solutions for their business.
To know more about it, we, at Ace Cloud Hosting, reached out to some leading industry experts to understand what are their views on hosted desktop trends and predictions for 2021 & beyond. Read these predictions from the industry’s leading expert Rory Monaghan to learn more!
Rory Monaghan, who resides in Galway, Ireland, is a founder at Rorymon Solutions. His top skill sets include Virtualization, Application Delivery, and Citrix. Rory is currently a Citrix CTA, Microsoft MVP, and VMware vExpert. He has several publications to his name and is a contributor to WhatMatrix, as well as his own Application Delivery Matrix.
Let’s find out what he said.
I feel like 2021 may be the year of catch up and enhance what you have already got. 2020 was a crazy year for everyone on the planet, and from a work perspective, there was a heavy lean on End User Computing to provide remote work solutions.
For those lucky enough to already have virtual desktop hosting or Hosted VDI, this typically meant scaling up the number of desktops to support everyone who went to work from home. And Citrix’s share price jumping in Q2 also suggested an increase in the number of licenses for those unfortunate enough not to have hosted desktop or VDI already. It meant ensuring performance on a VPN or possibly turning to run desktops in the cloud with products like Windows Virtual Desktop.
Remote Access: VPN & VDI Services
No matter which boat you happened to be on, most of us reacted at the moment. I believe it was Dr. Michael Ryan of the World Health Organization who said at the beginning of the pandemic that “perfection is the enemy of the good when it comes to emergency management. Speed trumps perfection.” This applies equally well to the emergency response by EUC teams.
When people went to work from home and suddenly needed a VPN or a virtual desktop they had never used before, there were bound to be shortcomings. The test would be done in production.
Those on the VPN may have experienced connection drops, they may have been missing some apps and certain workflows they had while in the office on the virtual desktop, and people were likely also missing applications. Many needed something like Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, but since it wasn’t in the virtual desktop image, they didn’t have it when they went remote.
The point being speed was required, which means many hosted virtual desktop (VDI) solutions are likely far from perfection. I feel like 2021 and beyond will be about trying to get closer to perfection and ensuring a better experience for our remote workforce.
In 2021, many teams will be working with the tiny budget due to the economic downturn plus the unexpected spend in 2020 to scale up. Hence, there may be a focus on enhancing current offerings with hopefully at least a view to PoC and try out some other modern products and tools with an eye on 2022 and beyond.
Remote Desktop Solution Use Case
At the end of 2020, I undertook a project to convert over 100 apps from App-V for MSIX to modernize our application delivery. Further, I wrote about Life After App-V. If you are using App-V and wondering what comes next, you may be interested in my blog post and this useful Infographic to show my results from comparing App-V and MSIX.
As a result of my research and due to our need to get more apps repackaged, this year, I will be working on packaging more of our applications that were available on physical desktops but not in the virtual desktops with Cloudpaging and publishing them with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops so full virtual desktop users can use them, published desktop users, physical desktop users on VPN and those who want to use the published apps right from Citrix Workspace.
I will also aim to automate more fixes in the environment to reduce helpdesk calls and frustration. I hope to gain better insight into remote endpoints, particularly Wi-Fi strength, via ControlUp.
Cloud Hosted Desktop Predictions for 2024 & Beyond
Some of the other general predictions for virtual desktop hosting I will make are that security will be front and center again in 2021. The industry has been seeing year-on-year increases in phishing attempts, ransomware attacks, and data breaches.
Zero trust and least privilege solutions like BeyondTrust and PolicyPak will become crucial, as will products to help stop lateral attacks like LAPS and CyberArk. I also feel like sooner or later, organizations will need to include training for employees on their personal security. Bad practices by people with passwords, clicking on phishing links, etc., on their own time can put organizations at risk too, and that seems to be a massive issue that doesn’t get addressed enough.
Learn more from our other guest blog post: “How do you see VDI in the coming years?” Brian Madden Speaks
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