Diverse VDI endpoints require new management methods in 2019

With the evolving needs of workers and the rise of end-user mobility, modern VDI management must account for several types of endpoints to succeed.

In 2019, IT professionals must prepare to incorporate a variety of different VDI endpoints, such as thin clients, thick clients and mobile devices. In addition, these endpoints can come from a variety of vendors. Managing the sea of device types is certainly a challenge, but vendors are aware of IT pros' need for flexibility and the need to provide them with utilities to match the market's latest demands.

With the growing need for cross-vendor management and platform-agonistic VDI endpoints, IT pros need to meet their modern management needs. Here, three experts share their perspectives on the challenges of and best practices for managing different endpoints in your VDI deployment.

April Marbury
CIO at Diversicare Healthcare Services

We are about five or six months into the rollout of the [IGEL] UD Pocket endpoints. It really extends the life of our hardware by three or four years just by plugging the [UD] Pocket into the USB port of a device and operating our desktops from there. IGEL provides the endpoint flexibility our centers and team members are requesting. In the future, do we need to really care? We are discussing and evaluating, but maybe not.

We needed a way to make sure everything works on the same system, but if we had to roll back [the IGEL deployment] it would be pretty simple. Right now, we're running our on-premises desktops on the [UD] Pockets and it's going really well.

With us being in healthcare, we can't take gambles that other organizations can. In the last couple of years, we've been burned a few times by new technology offerings, but we've found some certainty with these thin client endpoints.

Paul Wehner
Systems engineering specialist at the University of Notre Dame

VDI and application streaming will replace traditional endpoint computing. Endpoint devices will simply be displays for virtual application delivery, and applications and data will be accessible from anywhere on any device.

Ericom Connect provides us a secure method to quickly and securely distribute computer resources to researchers on a variety of platforms -- mostly Windows clients. We use Ericom in a tightly controlled environment with sensitive data. I like the ease of assigning individuals to resources, but providing users access while preventing data exfiltration is a challenge with these types of products.

David Henkel
Chief technology officer at Toppan Vintage

Toppan Vintage is a completely VDI environment, but with the recent acquisitions division, there's more of a need for flexibility. We realized we needed an endpoint that could support both [Citrix and VMware] protocols to help the transition.

Obviously, management is a concern at that point, so we found an endpoint manager that could cover our bases with the [IGEL] Universal Management Suite. We have a lot of remote workers, so we'll just deploy IGEL to that office, establish a secure connection and then we can manage these remote desktops regardless of the hardware or OS.