How To

How To Build Virtual Desktops in the Cloud

The need for virtual desktops in the cloud is growing alongside the trends of remote work, convenience of access, and application proliferation.

IT workers need the freedom to utilize enterprise desktop resources from anywhere so that their organization can keep up with the industry’s pace of application development. The combination of virtualization and cloud transformation makes this possible at any scale.

Key Takeaways:

Virtual desktops, in the cloud or otherwise, allow for convenient access to desktop resources from a remote location by hosting those resources on a central server.
Building a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) for the cloud starts with hyperconvergence as a foundation that improves the entire process and mitigates operational complexity.
The cloud platform itself is another key consideration when launching virtual desktops beyond the physical datacenter, as not every platform is fully equipped to handle a multicloud setup.

IT leaders can utilize virtual desktop technology to the fullest by understanding how to extend these tools to the cloud and how Nutanix can support the process in a way no other platform can.

What Are Virtual Desktops in the Cloud?

Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is a concept that makes desktops and applications available on-demand from any location by hosting the desktop resources on a server in the datacenter, which remote users can then access from anywhere, anytime.

Virtual desktops in the cloud, then, are virtual machines drawing resources from cloud datacenters to create the desktop environments that the end user operates in. This removes the burden on individual enterprises of maintaining on-site datacenters for the purpose of hosting virtual desktops.

VDI in the cloud differs from straightforward desktop virtualization in terms of how comprehensive it is as a process. VDI entails virtualizing the entire infrastructure of a desktop, including compute, networking, storage, and security.

The use of cloud-based virtual desktops directly benefits remote-first workplaces as well as larger companies that must provide desktop resources to a significant number of workers. Centralization, flexibility, security, and simplification are among the other benefits that enterprises can enjoy.

According to an analysis from Zion Market Research, global demand for VDI is increasing toward a projected market size of $50.5 billion by 2030. The industry-wide shift toward digitization is a standout growth factor, and one that IT decision-makers should consider when facing the decision of whether to adopt virtual desktops in the cloud.

Use Hyperconverged Infrastructure as the Foundation

Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) is a combination of server and storage elements of the datacenter into more efficient and highly scalable building blocks.

This differs from standard converged infrastructure in that the traditional method of convergence is for the vendor to pre-integrate datacenter systems, therefore perpetuating the problems of organizational silos and vendor lock-in. There is more freedom of consumer choice in the adoption of hyperconvergence.

HCI serves as a strong foundation for virtual desktops because it helps overcome issues of complexity that are likely to arise when attempting to run VDI on legacy infrastructure. HCI also improves the experience of virtual desktops in the cloud by providing consistent performance, increased uptime, lower TCO, and stronger security through microsegmentation.

Nutanix HCI is the best option for supporting virtual desktops because it is a single, unified HCI architecture that is more capable of supporting mixed workloads compared to similar solutions offered by the competition. Nutanix HCI enables companies to run VDI and DaaS, as well as databases, cloud native development tools, and other crucial enterprise applications while managing it all through a single simplified control plane.

Operate on the Best Cloud Platform

It stands to reason that companies need a reliable cloud platform for running their virtual desktops in the cloud. Reliability is very important because the greatest risk to VDI is that downtime affects all users relying on the system for their desktop resources.

The Nutanix Cloud Platform (NCP) is an ideal environment for supporting virtual desktops. It simplifies complex processes such as capacity planning and also removes the guesswork from calculating per-user costs.

With Nutanix, it is easy to extend HCI capabilities from on-premises datacenters to the cloud for a hybrid approach. Nutanix also facilitates the adoption of a multicloud strategy by guaranteeing license portability across clouds.

Furthermore, multicloud addresses the risk of downtime that threatens virtual desktops. Even if one cloud or location experiences an outage, it is possible to instead draw resources from a different cloud or move processes entirely from one cloud to another to ensure business continuity.

Nutanix Is the Ideal Solution for Migrating Virtual Desktops in the Cloud

Building virtual desktops in the cloud is a matter of having the right foundation on the right cloud platform. Another point to consider, however, is the need to actually launch or even migrate virtual desktops to the cloud in the first place.

In addition to effectively supporting virtual desktops through industry-leading HCI and multicloud capacity, Nutanix also facilitates fast and easy migration of virtual desktops as well as other types of virtual machines. Nutanix provides the support, toolkits, and workload coverage that organizations need when moving VMs from one platform to another, even when migrating virtual desktops from a competing cloud platform like VMware to the Nutanix environment.

The cloud should be a symbol of freedom for enterprise leaders, developers, and consumers at every stage of interaction with an application. On the Nutanix platform, the ideal level of freedom extends to the deployment of virtual desktops in the cloud.

Learn more about the differences between convergence and hyperconvergence and take a deeper dive into VDI.

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