Microsoft customer uses virtualization and management tools from the software giant to enable optimum services without taxing IT staff.
David Pugliese needed to deliver better desktops to the end users at AccuData Integrated Marketing in Fort Myers, Fla. With a distributed end-user community, the systems engineer explored Microsoft VDI as an alternative to traditional desktops.
“We started working with VDI two years ago because we wanted to offer bigger, faster desktops to our power users and everyone else,” Pugliese says. “We want to be good custodians of data with a distributed group of end users. The move to VDI enables us to give power users access to centralized resources and offer the same desktop to everyone, regardless of if they are in the office or working remotely.”
Considering 15% of AccuData’s 130 employees are remote and Pugliese IT staff ranges between three and six people, “depending on how you count,” he says that virtualization lets him centralized management of the distributed desktops without worrying about workers losing data or access to centralized resources. There is no need for AccuData IT staff to provision physical desktops, and end users get the same experience, according to Pugliese, who adds that Microsoft VDI also helps him refocus precious IT efforts on higher-priority projects.
“The benefits are immeasurable and infinite for me. We used to be so caught up in the day-to-day management of servers and desktops that we couldn’t focus on longer-term projects,” Pugliese says. “Desktop virtualization offers us security, reliability, flexibility and manageability. We are doing things now we couldn’t do before because we were so bogged down in everyday management.”
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