By Bryan Zanoli, Principal Architect, Entisys360

The concept of the DIGITAL WORKSPACE is no longer new. After all, VMware announced its WORKSPACE ONE solution over two years ago, practically a lifetime in IT. And of course, this wasn’t exactly the first moment the industry thought up the concept of the digital workspace. Even with all that time behind us, it only now appears we are on the verge of being able to deliver a true digital
workspace experience.

But, before I share how we’re able to deliver a digital workspace, let’s look at why its adoption is so critical to maintaining and supporting a competitive and modern workforce:

Increasing the Mobile Workforce

At this point, most organizations have a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategy in place. If not allowing BYOD, organizations are at least turning to Corporate Owned Personally Enabled (COPE), with users granted certain ability to utilize the device as they would their own. 

An Explosion of Applications and Data

The number of applications used by an organization is skyrocketing. Not only are we looking at an increase in applications, but the number of locations at which those applications are hosted is also growing. If you aren’t already, you will soon be managing access to SaaS apps, traditional but cloud-hosted, traditional but on prem, and even mobile apps.

It doesn’t stop there. With the sudden rise in popularity of Dropbox, cloud-based data storage solutions (officially called Enterprise File Sync and Share solutions) are becoming a mainstay in IT support directives. Many IT departments have already begun supporting multiple options, such as OneDrive, Box, or Google Drive.

Increased Complexity

The many device types introduced by the mobile workforce, compounded by the explosion of applications and data (and data sources) presents tremendous challenges with legacy end user management frameworks and platforms. This puts tremendous strain on IT administrators and engineers, as well as end users, who don’t receive the timely support they need to keep their workflows moving.

Add to this, the increased emphasis by company management on security and visibility, and the technical debt associated with endpoint and user management sky rockets.

Demand for Agility from IT and Business

This is an area where the end user computing (EUC) landscape will begin seeing a greater impact from concepts and methodologies aligned with DevOps and agile project management. First and foremost is Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery (CI/CD). If the app dev teams and the infrastructure operations teams are going to be expected to provide quick, always improving delivery of new software and software updates, these same expectations are going to fall on the end user computing teams as well.

Application and desktop delivery platforms will be expected to accommodate user provisioning requests in hours or minutes, not weeks or days. Management will expect dynamic scalability to support situations from mergers and acquisitions to seasonal workforce to third-party contractor onboarding. Self-service will simply become a natural aspect of the user workflow, with apps and desktop resources being provisioned automatically.

Security and Compliance

The fallacy of treating the data center as a walled garden is at its end. Mobile devices and IoT are extending the perimeter which IT must secure, well beyond the bounds of an organization’s traditional “secure network.” Furthermore, security exploits today are becoming more frequent, more impactful, and more costly. The truth is, it’s not just about protecting your environment from malicious actors, but also about protecting your end users from being compromised by social engineering efforts.

Not only do threats of malware or bad actors lead to IT stress, but regulatory compliance is expanding, with stricter controls and expectations. The recent roll out of GDPR may not directly impact US-based datacenters, but the fine print of the laws prove to be much wider than expected, with any data originating or residing in European countries, or by European citizens outside of Europe, still under purview.

Building the Digital Workspace

So how do we build the digital workspace to accommodate but also benefit from cloud? Stay tuned for part two of this post, as I provide an overview of the building blocks and key considerations of any successful Digital Workspace deployment.

Services

Security

Creating a strategy for managing risk and compliance while helping to filter the myriad of cybersecurity technologies

Modern Infrastructure

Empowering your enterprise to its greatest potential through an efficient and secure IT infrastructure

Digital Workplace

Enhancing enterprises with Application and Desktop Virtualization, Device Management, Identity and Security Compliance, and Communications and Collaboration.

Cloud Enablement

Accelerating IT service delivery through the adoption of agile methodologies using systems-oriented approach

Microsoft Expertise

Helping set goals and establishing benchmarks with the successful deployment of Microsoft solutions

Enterprise Managed Services

Best IT practices with design, configuration, implementation, licensing and environmental services

Markets and Market Support Vehicles

Business

Professional services and renowned expertise aligned with the trends and challenges facing a variety of industries

Healthcare

Addressing IT challenges faced by healthcare organizations through trusted services, solutions and relationships

Public Sector

Helping organizations manage costs and high availability while increasing security, compliance and efficiency

Group Purchasing

Industry-leading IT consulting services and technology solutions through a streamlined contracting process

Resource Library

Events

e360 in-person and online events

Solutions Literature

Access content on e360 services

Blog

Read about trending technology

Press Releases

Get official updates about e360

News Stories

Read about industry and e360 news

Media

e360 webinar and podcast content

About e360

Who We Are

Our mission, vision, leadership and team

Accolades

e360 awards and recognition

Privacy

e360's commitment to privacy

Community

e360's commitment to privacy

Careers

e360 career opportunities

Connect With e360

e360 locations and contact resources