Separating User Data and Applications in VDI Environments

Separating user data and applications from the base VDI experience allows organizations to implement better user data protection policies as well as ensure that applications are efficiently licensed.

Organizations are increasingly configuring their VDI deployments so that instead of monolithic VDI images that contain every possible application a user might need, a base set of applications, such as the Microsoft Office suite, is provided—with other applications that might be specific to the user. Rather than install the applications, these applications can be streamed to the user’s VDI desktop using a variety of technologies.

An advantage of this approach is that organizations will have their application licensing far more closely aligned with actual application utilization. Unnecessary software licensing is a problem that many organizations face, with many applications that are licensed never being used because a specific user has no need for them. Technologies that allow applications to be streamed to desktops, including VDI desktops, only when the application is required, provide organizations with the ability to acquire the number of licenses that matches actual application utilization, rather than hypothetical utilization.

Another important aspect of a successful VDI strategy is separating user’s data away from the VDI desktops. This can be done using a variety of strategies, such as forcing users to store all data on file shares and blocking them from storing documents on the local VDI desktop instance to which they are connected.

One of the huge benefits of this approach is that user data stored in a separate centrally managed location can be backed up and protected by the IT department. Should the user have a problem, such as corruption or loss of an important file, the IT department would be able to recover that file. Any IT administrator that has worked with traditional desktop computers knows that a certain number of the users in their organization will always store business critical files in locations that are not regularly backed, making those files irrecoverable.

Underwritten by HPE NVIDIA, and VMware