Study reveals challenges & costs of virtual desktops

New research highlights significant challenges faced by organisations using Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), with frequent issues necessitating specialised support.

Findings from a Nexthink survey involving 1,000 frontline IT workers indicate that 31% of organisations report daily problems with VDI that require expert intervention. Additionally, 40% experience VDI issues on a weekly basis. Problems related to application functionality failures and slow performance are reported by 54% and 47% of IT teams, respectively.

Despite recognising the importance of employee experience in selecting VDI solutions, 91% of respondents admitted that cost considerations often outweigh performance during provider selection. Furthermore, 92% of those surveyed confessed that VDI implementation was aimed at easing IT teams' workload rather than enhancing end-user experience.

According to Samuele Gantner, Chief Product Officer at Nexthink, the findings reveal that while VDI offers potential advantages such as scalability and security, many organisations struggle to realise these benefits. "A key issue is that delivering a desktop is only one part of making VDI work – users also need seamless access to applications and data," Gantner stated. He added that businesses lack visibility into how these integrations function, leading to unresolved issues and misplaced blame on VDI.

The research underscores the high operational costs associated with VDI, partly derived from the necessity of employing L3 VDI specialists, as L1 and L2 support often cannot handle the complexity involved. This requirement significantly impacts the cost-effectiveness of VDI, contradicting one of its primary deployment motivations.

Addressing these challenges requires organisations to develop a unified view of all VDI sessions with complete visibility and automated workflows to ensure minimal disruption to user experience. "Having instant insight into where problems are occurring can remove the blame game between functions and enable better collaboration both within IT departments and with the wider organisation," Gantner elaborated.

Gantner remarked on the challenging position IT teams face: "Ultimately, IT teams are in a lose-lose situation right now. They're accountable for the experience delivered by VDI, but they're not being given the tools to manage and improve it effectively. And without the ability to answer core questions such as; who is being affected, what is the source of issues, when did issues start, and is there a wider pattern, IT is always going to be playing whack-a-mole while continually being blamed by the rest of the business."