Virtual Desktop Solutions

The amount of people working remotely has skyrocketed. Whether people are out on the road or just working somewhere other than the office, they need to be able to access their applications and their data. Luckily, with virtual desktops, remote workers can access their identical desktop on any device, from any place, at any time.

What are Virtual Desktops?

Virtual desktops are preconfigured images of operating systems and applications in which the desktop environment is separated from the physical device used to access it. Users can access their virtual desktops remotely from any endpoint device. A virtual desktop looks, feels and acts just like a physical workstation.

The ROK Virtual Desktop Solution… It’s What We Do…

ROK will work with you to determine the right Virtual Desktop setup and solution to power your GIS. Then our team of experts get to work deploying and managing your new virtual environment. ROK ensures you have a scalable Virtual Desktop Solution for your remote workforce, now and in the future.Some of these benefits include:

Performance

Virtual Desktop seats powered by a GPU back end run ArcGIS Pro like it was intended. Whether you are on a Chromebook, iPad, or laptop, your performance will be second to none!

Remote access

Virtual Desktop users can connect to their virtual desktop from any location or device, making it easy for employees to access their files and applications and work remotely from anywhere.

Cost savings

Since processing is done on the server, the hardware requirements for end devices are much lower reducing the need for IT to purchase new and expensive hardware.

Productivity

Virtual Desktops coupled with an Enterprise deployment in the cloud allow users not only best-in-class performance bit the ability to work to collaborate in and update centralized database(s) in real time. No more replication, No more confusion, All employees working from a single point of truth.

Security

In a Virtual Desktop environment, data lives on the server rather than the end client device. This serves to protect data if an endpoint device is ever compromised.

Did you know?

One advantage to working in the cloud that may be underused - spinning up temporary resources for project specific tasks. Let’s say you have some heavy duty processing that you need to do in the next month. The processing itself may only take 40 hours of crunching, but it requires some serious muscle. The flexibility of working in a cloud environment makes it incredibly easy to spin up a temporary resource to plug and chug, for minimal cost. Let ROK design and manage these one-off solutions for you.

Webinar

Top 3 Challenges Migrating to the Cloud

Cloud technologies are increasingly more important because of their convenience, performance, and cost-effectiveness compared to on-premise solutions. But before starting a Cloud migration, it’s important to understand the top challenges – and how to overcome them —so your organization has a smooth and successful transition to the Cloud. In this webinar you will learn: […]

Case Study

City of Hastings Rolls Out Utility Network Powered by ROK Technologies and AWS

01 Amplifying a Small Team with Big Plans Before the City of Hastings migrated their GIS to the Cloud seven years ago, they had an on-premise server that was mainly for hosting three websites for public viewing. The three websites functioned as informational for both employees and the public. The City relied on their IT […]

Article

Kubernetes: Everything You Need to Know

What is Kubernetes, aka K8s? Kubernetes allows you to manage and run multiple containers across a cluster of machines. Containers are lightweight, isolated environments that package an application and its dependencies, providing consistency and portability. By using Kubernetes, you can define how your containers should run, specify their resource requirements, and ensure high availability and […]

WHAT OUR CLIENTS HAVE TO SAY:

“Nassau County switched to Virtualized Desktop and GIS manager Jason Gregory estimates productivity has increased at least 25 percent. Virtualized Desktop has eliminated the hours Gregory spent every week updating data, and previously siloed map and GIS information is now collected all in one repository."

Jason Gregory • GIS Director
Nassau County Property Appraiser

FAQs

What is VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure)?

A Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is a solution that involves running virtual desktops on Virtual Machines (VMs) hosted in the cloud. VDI provides an isolated environment for each user and offers the same user experience as a traditional physical desktop.

What is the difference between VDI and VPN?

While similar, VDI allows access to a remote desktop on which users can work, VPN establishes a tunnel between the end-user and an organization’s private network. Both are popular solutions for remote work, VPN is more cost-effective, easy to implement, and simple to use. However, due to the demands of GIS data processing, complex workflows and high performance and graphic processing, VDI is the better choice.

Who manages the software on my Virtual Desktop?

ROK typically will manage software installs and upgrades within your Virtual Desktop environment (Citrix, AWS Workspaces). However if you prefer to handle the administration of the Virtual Desktop environment that is fine too. This is your environment, you are in charge here.

How does VDI work?

Users log into a VM from any device and from anywhere through a secure network. A VDI hosted environment provides an end-user experience through a virtualized backend that hosts VMs. Users utilize a replica of the master desktop. The master desktop stores all the required applications and distributes it via application virtualization.

Virtual Desktop Solutions