Social Distance = WFH

My first blog comes to mind in the middle of an end-user computing meeting. Where was this meeting being held? You guessed it! From my home office. But what’s the topic? Well, it focused on remote solutions for customers during this pandemic. Obviously, right? Within the past month, everyone is now suddenly assigned to their remote office.

As you may or may not be aware, Nutanix pioneered HCI or hyper-converged infrastructure (which I will cover in a later blog). What was the primary workload that Nutanix focused on? Nothing other than virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). So, here we are 10+ years later full circle talking about what Nutanix has done exceptionally since the beginning.

Things have changed over the past 10+ years. No longer do we only have the VDI acronym. We have new acronyms such as EUC, RDSH, and DaaS. So, what is this? Are you confused? Do not worry. I was just as confused when I first started to dig in.

Let’s start with EUC or end-user computing. I believe a safe definition is end-user computing is an umbrella word for all products touching end-users. So, what are these things? Well, VDI and DaaS and RDSH (explained soon) and MDM (yet another acronym), and secure sign-in.

Let’s break the acronym’s down.

VDI – Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. VDI is is a technology where end-users have access to desktops, mostly Windows. A user maps 1:1 to VMs. VDI is a term that most of us in the data center has heard. This solution is owned and managed by the customer in a data center. The platforms that come to mind for VDI are Citrix and VMware Horizon. Now, understand that some may still refer to this as EUC as well!

DaaS – Desktop-as-a-Service. DaaS is similar to VDI, where the end-user has access to desktops; however, there is a managed service component to this technology. A managed service brokers the remote session, and the platform is updated and maintained by this service. DaaS is a more modernized solution for EUC that reduces infrastructure requirements and support within your data center. The leading platforms for this managed service would be Amazon Workspaces, Citrix Cloud, and Nutanix Frame.

RDSH – Remote Desktop Session Host. RDSH is similar to VDI, but this technology allows multiple users to share a VM or bare-metal server, simultaneously. RDSH is based on Microsoft and built into Windows. You will commonly refer to this as Terminal Services or Remote Desktop Services.

So, let’s get back to why I am writing this blog. How do you decide what platform is best for your organization? Especially since there is this ultimate demand to get everyone working from home.

First, start with these questions.

What were we doing before the mandate for everyone to work from home?
What are we required to provide the end-users for them to work from home successfully? (important word = success)
Is this expected to be permanent, or is there an end to this WFH requirement?
How quickly do we need to deliver a solution to our end-users?

As you work through these questions, it is critical to know that Nutanix meets all of your EUC conditions. If you currently have Citrix or VMware Horizon deployed, Nutanix is the 1-Click HCI platform of choice for On-Prem VDI, supporting millions of users.

Now, if you are like most customers, you may have an on-prem VDI solution, but not nearly enough capacity or licenses to handle your entire workforce. With the current demand to move as fast as possible, you must think differently. Purchasing new hardware, having it shipped, installed, tested, and deployed will take far too long. Expanding your on-prem VDI solution may not be the best move forward, and definitely will slow your organization down. It is time to consider DaaS.

If you currently have no EUC solution, you may be thinking, “What now?” Forget that thought. Remember, DaaS?

Nutanix Frame solves common work-from-home challenges, and it does it quickly. Now, there is plenty of official Nutanix branded information available. What is essential to this blog is the Why Frame!

Real-world example.

On Thursday, March 19th, I had a customer call me. “The entire workforce is now required to work from home, and we need a solution, fast.” They added, “We need to test Nutanix Frame. How quickly can we get this going?”. Now, this is a current customer. They have Nutanix in their primary and secondary data centers. However, their existing clusters do not have enough capacity to run 100+ virtual desktop sessions.

What next? Well, the customer already has a presence in Microsoft Azure. Nutanix Frame supports deployments in Azure, as well as AWS, GCP, and on-prem with Nutanix AHV. The customer also knows that Nutanix has responded to WFH demand by offering 30-days free. And what’s better? They read our tagline, get employees working from home in under 1 hour!

So, what next? What else! The customer started their free 30-day trial! After receiving their welcome email, they logged into Frame and started with adding a Cloud Account, selecting Azure as their Cloud Provider. Other choices were AWS, GCP, and Nutanix. In a couple of minutes, the Cloud Account finished provisioning, and they were able to start creating their first Frame Account. They decided which Azure region to deploy in, entered their VCP CIDR, selected the Windows OS image, decided on non-persistent desktops, confirmed their selections, and clicked on Create.

It was that simple. I am confident that I could leave you those simple steps, and you would be on your way as long as you had your Microsoft Azure account information handy. Be assured; I will post detailed guidance as I know you will want to see more! Now, if you’re going to challenge this, go ahead and sign up. Give it a try!

Here is what thrills me, and grabs the most attention. You can deploy Nutanix Frame to get you through this tough time, and there is no on-prem Nutanix requirement. You can bring your cloud account. Now, it gets better. You may have Citrix of VMware Horizon on-prem, but you need a little more capacity, or you are out of licenses. Go ahead and deploy Nutanix Frame. Augment what you have. Run them side-by-side. Decide what you need from a EUC solution. Is there a benefit? You decide.

Now is the time to step out of the norm. Aren’t we doing that already with Social Distancing?

Thanks for reading!

Social Distanc[ed]

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