Virtual Desktops

Many organizations are considering Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), where desktops are delivered virtually from the datacenter. The ability to centrally manage desktops in the datacenter brings greater flexibility, reliability and security. In order to maximize the benefits of VDI, organizations must take greater control of the desktop build, as it is difficult to simply shift an unmanaged desktop to a virtualized environment in the datacenter.

A migration to VDI necessitates a review of the desktop infrastructure, in order to minimise the number of supported desktop images. It is also a good time to review application delivery mechanisms, as technologies that stream and virtualize applications can also help to minimize the number of distinct desktop images required to support the user base, which provides a more manageable virtual desktop solution.

In order to gain the maximum security benefits from a VDI solution, user privileges should also be reviewed, as many users have administrative or privileged accounts, usually to allow them to run legacy applications or perform a handful of privileged tasks. Rather than moving the security and operational problems associated with users running under privileged accounts, it makes sense to rationalize and eliminate the use of these privileged accounts, wherever possible, when moving a to VDI solution.

Privilege Guard can assign elevated rights to applications, tasks and scripts, regardless of the delivery mechanism. Whether installed, streamed or virtualized, Privilege Guard can assign the necessary privileges to individual applications, enabling all users to logon with a standard user account. If you are considering undertaking a VDI project then it is an ideal opportunity to remove admin rights from your user base.

Virtual Desktops and Privilege Guard

Avecto Privilege Guard is supported on both VMware View and Citrix XenDesktop.