VMware’s Infrastructure And Technology Solutions To Support Workplaces Of The Future

By Abhishek Raval and Gairika Mitra

A publicly traded software firm, VMware specialises in providing cloud computing services and virtualisation software and service solutions. Additionally, VMware is striving to help Indian enterprises achieve employee business continuity by creating a more effective Remote-First work strategy.

Prajit Nair, Director Sales- End User Computing, VMware India, gives us deeper insights into VMware’s upcoming plans in an e-interaction with Express Computer’s Abhishek Raval and Gairika Mitra.

Edited excerpts:

What are the kinds of queries, VMware is getting from the customers in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis?

Many of our customers and partners have asked us how we can help them maintain business continuity during these times. VMware has the capabilities to help customers across the globe enable their employees to work remotely, maintain productivity, increase connectivity and provide for continuous secure access to applications regardless of the endpoint.

• • COVID-19 is catalyzing a new way of working and interacting, and VMW platforms can uniquely bring value.
  • This requires every organization to have a solid digital foundation to support its increasingly distributed workforce.  VMware’s broad portfolio of solutions will be conducive to this undertaking.

VMware supports its customers for business continuity, which is especially important in today’s fast-evolving global situation, which has exacerbated the need for a flexible workplace environment. The future of work has been changing for some time, and as we navigate this pandemic, the model for distributing work or work-from-home has accelerated. Our business is predicated on building the infrastructure and solutions optimized for the workplace of the future.

Inquiries on which solutions have increased and why?
Given the current situation where employees are told to work from home, our customers reached out to us to understand how they could respond to the immediate change in the way they work and continue their operations without disruption.  We have received additional requests on cloud-based services and digital workplaces, which have to be pursued on an urgent basis. We had requests where companies wanted to deploy solutions in their companies that would be instant, maintain productivity, increase connectivity, and deliver access to any app on any device without compromising security. We are witnessing an increase in the number of customer enquiries about working with our Professional Services Team  to help implement the technology rapidly and also train the teams on the technology.

Any unique scenarios concerning the support given to the customers?
We have been working with a customer in the knowledge processing vertical to help address the manageability, scalability and security of their servers and desktops for 2000 plus employees. The customer required strict security standards for their client data and at the same time wanted to virtualize all their desktops and laptops. 

VMware was able to address all requirements and provide a number of additional benefits listed below – 

• With VMware, the IT team was able to deploy a new desktop in a matter of minutes as compared to four hours for physical desktops. 
• Deployed virtual desktops for employees throughout the organization. 
• The additional security and manageability of the virtual desktops allowed the IT team to focus on what it does best – support the business and ensure that clients are provided with the level of service that only they could provide.

Centralized management via VMware vCenter also simplified the management of the customer’s IT infrastructure.

How do you think digital workplace solutions would be the most viable option in the long run?
As the recent outbreak has put a halt to travel and business, as usual, businesses have come to realize the impact such unplanned events can have on employee experience and consequentially, business success. In today’s state of the workforce, it’s more critical than ever that an employee is enabled to work remotely on any app on any device without compromising security. 

An ideal digital workspace experience enables remote workers with flexible device choice and delivers business-critical virtual desktops (VDI) and applications to any corporate-owned or BYO device. Businesses can secure application access with a Zero Trust access control model, no matter whether applications reside in the cloud or the data center. With an elastic infrastructure, IT can scale to meet changing remote work demands.

The future of work is changing; as the work-from-home model becomes the norm and work itself becomes more distributed, infrastructure and technology solutions will continue to be optimized for the workplace of the future.

What’s your BCP amid such turbulent times?

As digital transformation leaders, we had already enabled remote working via our digital workspace solution Workspace One for our employees, and now we find ourselves in a position of unique advantage in helping our customers do the same.

We have in place a Business Continuity Plan that has been designed to help our customers rapidly digitally transform their infrastructure to allow remote working without losing out on productivity, efficiency or security.

As solution providers, our focus is on helping the community and our customers as they respond and adapt at this time:

• • We deliver digital workspaces that can access critical applications to any endpoint.
  • We can protect all endpoints that are accessing organization assets remotely. 

(With VMware Carbon Black that can help protect remote workers against cyberattacks without any additional infrastructure.)

• • We can accelerate the performance of organizational assets that are now remote (using VMware SD-WAN).
  • And, we can provide the elastic capacity to scale new virtual desktop users instantly and on-demand on cloud infra with our partnership with leading cloud service providers Microsoft and AWS
  • Horizon on Microsoft Azure enables users to consume Azure cloud and WVD offerings of Microsoft through the Horizon Control Pane and can be delivered instantly
  • VMware Cloud on AWS allows customers to leverage VMware-based elastic capacity in the cloud in under 2 hours.

How are you ensuring Scaling On Demand?
Our Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure/AWS solution enables scalable, better secured and consistent infrastructure in the Cloud. Organizations have the advantage of quickly provisioning on to the global footprint of Microsoft Azure cloud and WVD offering through the Horizon Control Pane or leveraging vSphere-based elastic capacity in the AWS Cloud across 17 Regions in under 2 hours. One can also protect their infrastructure with VMware Site Recovery DR in the cloud. 

VMware Cloud on AWS delivers a scalable, intrinsically secure vSphere environment as a service in the AWS Cloud. The service can help organizations alleviate potential business disruptions in three ways:

• Infrastructure products supply chain and maintenance disruptions: Deliver infrastructure capacity in under 2 hours in 17 AWS Regions worldwide to handle urgent demand. Scale the infrastructure on-demand in minutes as needed.
• Infrastructure risk mitigation: Provide proactive and automated disaster avoidance with VMware Site Recovery DR as a service and VMware Cloud on AWS.
• Aid remote workers and alleviate travel restrictions: Provide VMware Horizon 7 VDI environments on VMware Cloud on AWS to enable a remote workforce.

What kind of Cloud-Native EndPoint Protection is being provided by VMware?
VMware’s Carbon Black offers threat intelligence that helps better protection to our customers and strengthens the cybersecurity by delivering research, solutions, and strategies that help minimize threat impact, decrease attacker dwell time, inhibit lateral movement, and suppress intrusions. This enables a complete cohesive solution for customers – Workspace One Intelligence which has analytics built into it with recommendations from other security platform vendors through our Trust Network and finally remediation through our Carbon Black EDR solution.

The Carbon Black Cloud delivers the entire protection cycle of harden, prevent, detect, and response for endpoints and workloads spread across the globe. It also protects remote workforces against cyberattacks without any additional infrastructure. VMware Carbon Black Cloud makes it easy to reduce the attack surface, prevent malicious behavior, and respond to attacks no matter where the endpoints are located. Both the employees being protected and the security teams taking action can operate effectively without stepping foot in an office.

What is VMware’s upcoming technical plan?

As our CEO, Mr. Pat Gelsinger said, right now, when business as usual is not an option, we are focussed on helping each other, and assisting our customers as they respond and adapt. VMware has the capabilities to help customers to maintain productivity and connectivity in a secure environment as their employees work from home. As a company, we will continue to build infrastructure and technology solutions that support workplaces of the future.