How do you share files and documents within your organization? When your company is small – just you and maybe one other person – solutions like Dropbox or Google Drive work just fine. But what happens when your company grows to five, 10 or 20 people? Applications like these can quickly go from being a convenience to causing headaches.
 
While there are tons of issues which can arise when there is no central control, the daily issue has to do with bandwidth. When you use the default settings with file sharing apps like Dropbox and Google Drive, when one person makes a change it is typically set up to push the changes to all users sharing the file. A simple example would be someone making a change to a one-megabyte file. When the user edits the file and saves it, it pushes the file by to Dropbox, which then pushes the revised file out to all the other users. If you have 10 employees, you multiply that one megabyte by 10, then you multiply it by 10 again. Your data usage grows exponentially. This is what we call the Dropbox Effect.
 
You can see for yourself how the Dropbox Effect causes a drain by using public Wi-Fi. Walk into a coffee shop and get on the Internet. Wait for someone to walk in and open their laptop. If that laptop is part of an organization that relies on Dropbox, it will start sucking up all the bandwidth if there are no limitations set for the users. This happens because all the files edited since yesterday by the 20 people in your fellow latte lover's organization are now being downloaded.
 
What's the answer? How can you efficiently manage data from different users on different computers? How can you keep from blowing through bandwidth and still collaborate on shared files?
 
The solution is Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, or VDI. With VDI, everything runs safe and secure on a server in a data center. Your computer becomes a terminal; you're looking at a portal in your computer to access programs and files on the server. That means you're only using a small amount of bandwidth to see what's happening on the server instead of having to download anything or work with whatever Internet limitations you may be subject to.
 
There are plenty of other advantages to using VDI, too. You can grant and revoke access to any or all parts of your business network and to any user in almost no time. Employees can be anywhere in the world, as long as there's an Internet connection, and be on the same server (no syncing!). You don't have to worry about whether they prefer to use Windows or Mac computers because VDI is merely a window to another system. You never have to think about making sure everyone is keeping all of their programs, apps and antivirus software up to date because it's all taken care of at one time, in one place.
 
It's never too early to run your business with the help of VDI. Even if you only have two people, VDI makes it so you never have to worry about backups, lost data, or stolen or broken laptops. VDI puts your mind at ease when it comes to disaster recovery and business continuity plans.
 
When we at CloudWyze set up VDI for our customers, we take a look at the specific needs of your organization and customize it to meet those needs. Users can be set up in minutes and avoid a ton of the headaches many organizations meet when they begin to grow. If you have any questions about how VDI can help your particular organization or you want to go ahead and start experiencing all the benefits VDI provides, give us a call at (877) 678-3739.
 
Shaun Olsen is the CEO and president of CloudWyze. CloudWyze was created to help businesses focus and perform at their optimal level by crafting and executing custom technology plans for businesses of every type and size. To learn more about CloudWyze, visit www.CloudWyze.com. Shaun can be reached at [email protected] or (910) 795-1000.