We understand what technologies will help to configure and manage software for employees’ work.When employees work in the office, they usually have standard devices for which the company provides standard programs, settings, controls, and security.
When employees work remotely or in the office from their equipment, they can use a wide variety of devices – this complicates the installation of software, management of settings, and ensuring information security, including protecting corporate data.
Let’s see what methods can be used to solve this problem and what is better to implement in the company.
How Can Remote Workstations Be Organized: What Are a Virtual Workstation And Terminal Access
To work, employees need various programs that can be installed directly on their computers or laptops or can be placed remotely, on servers, or in the cloud, making them accessible to those who need to comply with all company security policies.
There are two ways to organize the work of employees with remote software through any device:
Terminal access: working applications and programs, separately or together with the entire working environment, are located on the same server, separate instances (instances) of programs are launched for different users. That is, applications run in separate sessions but on the same operating system. This means that if one user crashes the program and because of this there is a failure in the OS, it will affect all other users working at that time.
VDI, or virtual desktops, is a slightly different approach. By using a special management server on the virtualization platform, virtual machines are created, each of which has its own operating system. The application or the entire working environment for one employee is located on a separate virtual machine, isolated from the software for other users. That is, failures in one virtual machine of one user will not affect all others. All these virtual machines are deployed and managed using special software.
The main difference will be in the level of isolation of applications and the working environment of different employees from each other. In addition, the terminal server uses a server operating system on which some programs cannot be installed, and with VDI, you can use a regular user operating system.
VDI, in contrast to a terminal server, provides an isolated operating system, as a result – a full-fledged desktop environment, as on a computer desktop. This allows you to give users more rights, including at the administrator level, without the risk of disrupting the work of the shared server, as is the case with terminal access. In addition, crashes in the application that affects the operating system, in this case, will only affect one virtual machine and will not affect the work of other employees in any way.
How The Virtual Workplace Works
Using terminal access and VDI, you can deploy one application or organize something like a remote virtual computer with an explorer, office suite, and other software. True, in the case of terminal access, it is possible to organize a full desktop only with the restrictions imposed by the common server OS. In both cases, the programs work on the server, where the employee’s actions are transferred, and he receives screen changes in response.
An employee can launch the program to access the virtual desktop or log into the server from any device. To him, everything looks as if he is working with an application or desktop located on his computer, laptop, or tablet.By Using a special management server on the virtualization platform, virtual machines are created, user data and their environment are managed.
Virtual machines are created from ready-made images with a pre-installed VDI agent; they contain the necessary settings to the maximum. Then the final customization takes place: virtual machines are tweaked if you have applied additional settings on the server. For example, when users connect from different time zones, you need to set the correct time for everyone.
You can also create pools (groups) of virtual machines from different templates: for example, a group of virtual machines for managers with an office suite inside, a group of virtual machines for engineers with technical programs, and so on. Different access levels can be configured for each user group.
To connect to VDI, the user uses a special program or HTML5 Web Remote Desktop Client. After authorization, he sees a list of resources to which he can access and exchange data between employees’ devices and remote workplaces; special protocols are used. Companies that offer VDI software such as VMware, Citrix, and others use their own proprietary protocols that only work with their software. Alternative solutions are built on open implementations of the RDP protocol – with its help; you can organize data transfer if you organize remote workstations yourself; the same protocol is often used by cloud providers offering VDI as a service.
There Are Two Mechanisms Of Use On VDI :
- gains access to his workplace the first time he logs in. A free one is randomly selected from the group of virtual machines. Upon completion of work, all of its files and settings are saved in its operating system; upon re-entry, it always gains access to the same virtual machine.
- When virtual machines with workplaces are not assigned to an employee, after logging in, the employee gets into a free virtual machine. After the completion of the work, his data and files are not saved in her operating system, it is updated or recreated, and then, in a cleaned form, it is available to the next employee. In this case, the data necessary for work is stored only inside the server. It is convenient when there are a large number of shift workers; it is resource-intensive to provide each with a separate fixed machine.
VDI workstations are often set up for remote workers. But you can create ready-made jobs for those who come to work in the office. They can access them from their work computer or bring their own laptops.
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