Virtual Desktop Archives - Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom

Her Majesty’s Land Registry empowers employees with secure remote working

Matt Spender and Sam Stamp — Wed, 16 Sep 2020 08:48:39 +0000

Her Majesty’s Land Registry (HMLR) was created in 1862 to register the ownership of land and property in England and Wales, which is currently valued at £7 trillion. Safeguarding the ownership of this land enables over £1 trillion of personal and commercial lending to be secured against property and land. As such, HMLR has a unique role and duty in the UK property market, as UK residents and public and private sector organisations rely on access to the register and up to date records. The department itself has around 6,000 employees across the country, with a majority of these employees being office based.

Balancing security and remote working

To help the property market operate, HMLR caseworkers need to be able to update and maintain the Land Register. This was challenged when the onset of COVID-19 severely hindered caseworkers’ ability to continue their work as they weren’t able to get to the office. Therefore, a solution was needed to ensure caseworkers could work from home whilst securely maintaining and updating the land register.

Microsoft and HMLR already work together to help empower employees with productive and collaborative tools. Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) was quickly identified as a potential remote working solution. It provides the caseworkers with a virtualised Windows 10 desktop that can be accessed from any device. All the applications that the caseworkers depend upon to maintain the register are accessible remotely. The architecture of WVD has meant the solution has been able to be rolled out to 5,500 caseworkers in a matter of weeks.

The caseworkers are the foundation of operations and are instrumental in HMLR’s commitment to their core value: ‘Your Land and property rights; guaranteed and protected’. To continue this commitment, HMLR had to feel confident that WVD and Microsoft could be trusted with sensitive data. WVD separates the caseworkers work environment from the user device. This reduces the risk of sensitive data being left on a personal device. At the foundational level, HMLR can deploy a number of Azure security services without deprecating the performance of the desktop. Additionally, WVD service benefits from the security investments made in the Azure platform. This includes a multi-layered intelligent approach, with security built by design.

Deploying Windows Virtual Desktop for secure remote working

Once HMLR knew that WVD would help securely enable remote working and provide an agile user experience, they moved onto the next step. Technical teams were quickly established to create an initial WVD proof of concept for 20 users. WVD was then rolled out to a further 1,000 case workers. A total of 4,500 users are in scope for the first wave of deployment.

HMLR’s tips to balancing security and remote working

Start with a proof of concept to make sure it works well for the few before rolling it out to the many.
Keep security in mind when building the infrastructure from the ground up, make sure you use secure designs and best practices.
Leverage automation tools in Azure to build and deploy instances quickly.
Take advantage of the marketplace and native tools to deploy apps and services within hours.
Embrace the challenge head-on with a can-do attitude and open culture.

In their own words

“The implementation of a new Azure platform and specifically, Windows Virtual Desktop, has been vital to our ability to maintain critical business services and keep this area of the UK economy moving during the COVID-19 crisis. The solution has not only allowed our staff to keep processing vital casework but has also opened up opportunities for further transformation in the future.”

I am extremely proud of what the team have achieved in such a short timescale. To design and implement such an important solution and scale it up for the entire organisation in challenging circumstances has been nothing short of impressive! This has only been achievable through focussed talent and the use of modern, flexible technology available in the Azure platform.” – Andy Crawford, HMLR Principal Technical Architect

“We have really benefited from the ability to build new infrastructure from the ground up. This has enabled us to deploy at speed, using secure designs and best practice without concerns about impacting existing infrastructure. The automation tools within Azure have enabled us to build and deploy instances quickly, enabling us to scale our platform from a few hundred users to thousands with limited effort.” – HMLR Infrastructure Engineer

“The ability to leverage marketplace and native tools have given us fast access to products that in the data hall would take weeks to implement. Using templates, we have been able to deploy them in a few hours. As our entire engineering workforce switched to home working for the first time, Microsoft Teams and the Azure Portal enabled us to carry on as if we were in the same office and maintain our momentum of delivery. We could not have imagined going from 0 to a 4,500 user environment in such a short time.” – HMLR Infrastructure Engineer

A word from Microsoft

Deploying a new secure remote working solution quickly isn’t an easy task. But when you have one that focusses on the employees first, you’re more likely to have a successful deployment. HMLR did this by using WVD to make it easy for employees to access the network and access the information they need securely, and quickly.

“What has really stood out, has been the attitude of all the members of the HMLR team who have designed and implemented a robust and working solution in a timeframe that has enabled HMLR to continue to operate. Given the unprecedented circumstances that we are currently in, this achievement is even more impressive. The HMLR team have embraced the challenge head-on and persisted when faced with setbacks and have taken the opportunity to learn from each step, which will stand them in good stead for the future.”

– Matt Spender, Accounts team, Microsoft.

Find out more

Learn more: Discover the benefits of Windows Virtual Desktop

Watch the on-demand webinar: The benefits for WVD and how to start your journey

Tools to empower your development team

Read the documentation: How to get started with Windows Virtual Desktop

Explore the learning path: Deliver remote desktops and apps from Azure with Windows Virtual Desktop

About the author

Matt is an Azure Infrastructure Specialist and helps customers to build, manage, and deploy their apps in Azure. He has been in the Azure team for the past five years where he has worked with a variety of customers in global finance and central government. Prior to joining Microsoft, Matt worked has worked in the IT sector for over 20 years, developing a passion for working closely with customers to help them achieve their goals.

Sam Stamp works with the central government and works closely with Department for BEIS as a Cloud Solution Architect (CSA) in Infrastructure. Sam has a number of years’ experience as a Microsoft customer and as a solution architect, managing infrastructure teams. This has offered a depth of exposure to the ecosystem of solutions, not just in design but through real world implementation.

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Empower employees for secure remote working with Windows Virtual Desktop

Kirsty Harrison — Wed, 22 Apr 2020 10:21:37 +0000

Delivering desktops through Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is not a new innovation by any means. For well over a decade, it has been a common way for organisations to deliver desktops and applications to end users with benefits such as saving costs, streamlining image management, and enable secure remote work.

From a cost perspective, delivering desktops through VDI helps reduce the time it takes to provision new desktops. Easy and quick to set up, it reduces labour time and support costs as well as providing a faster time to value. Desktop virtualisation helps streamline the management of software assets because everything is centrally managed, stored, and secured. This makes it easier for your IT team to set up and provide users with desktops and apps, no matter where your users are located.

Virtual desktops also provide greater security to organisations as confidential company data can be safely accessed when employees are working remotely. This also means employee productivity is increased as workers are empowered to access data and apps from anywhere, at any time.

Despite the benefits of VDI, previous virtualisation host options left customers with two choices over the type of virtual machines that they can deploy to deliver desktops.

Deploying a Windows Server Desktop experience to achieve the cost savings of multi-session
Deploying single session in Windows 10.

The friction between user experience and cost, as well as the opportunity Azure as a platform poses were the triggers that led to the innovation of Windows Virtual Desktop.

Scale and optimise services

Windows Virtual Desktop delivers Windows 10 multi-session with optimisation for Office 365 Pro Plus, support for remote desktop services, and simplified virtual desktop management. Running on Azure means that organisations can benefit from the platform’s intelligent security posture. They will also achieve rapid scaling up and down of desktops, while only paying for the infrastructure used when they need it.

With Windows Virtual Desktop the Virtual Desktop management services (web access, gateway, brokers, servers, load balancing, diagnostics, etc) are provided and managed by Microsoft, reducing your need to manage on-premise infrastructure and ensuring the infrastructure is always updated and secure.

We are seeing two key drivers for customers exploring Windows Virtual Desktop in their own organisation:

1. Migration momentum: Migrating on-premise VDI estates

By migrating on-premise servers to Microsoft Azure, you’ll have increased infrastructure resiliency, scalability, and reduced costs. Migrating an on-premise VDI environment to leverage Windows Virtual Desktop allows customers to achieve these same benefits. This time, however, we’re talking about migrating desktop infrastructure.

By migrating on-premise VDI estates to Azure, customers are experiencing cost savings from multi-session Windows 10 and easier deployment of Office 365. They are achieving true cloud economics by being able to scale desktops up and down easily, only paying for what they use.

Workloads are protected with built-in controls and services in Azure, giving deep insights on your organisation’s security environment. Built using machine learning, behavioural analytics, and app-based intelligence, it helps identify and protect against rapidly evolving threats.

2. Discovering new possibilities – from disaster recovery to secure remote work

Many customers piloting and deploying Windows Virtual Desktop have no prior experience of using VDI. However, they believe the new scenarios Windows Virtual Desktop unlocks provide compelling use cases to explore virtualising desktops for the first time.

We have examples of customers using Windows Virtual Desktop for disaster recovery purposes. Other customers are using Windows Virtual Desktop for high performance computing. For example, it allows filmmakers to spin up a desktop with high GPU to render large videos, then putting the desktop back into the pool once it’s done. Paying for this additional compute when films need to be rendered is significantly cheaper than paying for expensive hardware 24/7.

One of the main reasons customers are using Windows Virtual Desktop is to enable secure remote work. With a virtual desktop, employees are no longer constrained to physical hardware or their location. Once they request a virtual desktop, it can be quickly administered based on their profile. Also, the Windows Virtual Desktop client is available on Windows, Android (in preview), Mac, iOS, and on a HTML 5 compatible browser, meaning your employees can access the apps and tools they need on any device, anywhere and at any time.

Windows Virtual Desktop truly delivers an enterprise grade desktop experience with Windows 10, powered by Azure, no matter where or when your employees are working. If you are considering a Windows Virtual Desktop pilot, reach out to your Microsoft Account Team or one of our Azure MSP Expert partners. Furthermore, we have a number of webinars running for customers and partners to learn more.

Find out more

Join a webinar to find out how to deploy Windows Virtual Desktop

Discover Windows Virtual Desktop

About the author

Kirsty is Microsoft UK’s Windows Virtual Desktop Lead. Kirsty started her career at the University of Oxford (Christ Church) where she studied Economics and Management. She has since joined Microsoft and worked with customers in a wide range of industries as a Commercial Executive and more recently in the Azure Business Group.

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4 ways virtual desktops benefit your NHS trust

Andy Launchbury — Fri, 06 Sep 2019 09:00:19 +0000

We’re going to be sharing a story every week for the 12 weeks of summer, showing you how healthcare organisations are using technology to transform patient outcomes and increase productivity. For the tenth blog in the series, Andy Launchbury explores why Windows Virtual Desktop is ideal for improving patient care.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructures (VDI) have been big in the NHS for some time. Healthcare organisations have made huge successes in enhancing workforce productivity and transforming patient care through the use of this technology. In addition, it strengthens defences against cyber-attacks.

Despite this success, many trusts up and down the country believe there’s a serious barrier to entry preventing them from taking advantage of this technology. Primary among these is cost, with significant investment required in infrastructure and software to run these environments on premises. Further to this are the complexities, resources, and time required to manage these environments

These concerns and many more can be addressed with Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD).

WVD is a comprehensive desktop and application VDI based service hosted in Azure. The service is now generally available worldwide.

Through a deal between the Department of Health and Microsoft, all NHS trusts automatically have access to the Windows Virtual Desktop through the Windows Enterprise E5 licensing at no additional cost.

This brings incredible benefits to medical staff, while overcoming many challenges faced by trusts.

1. One virtual machine, multiple sessions

Windows 10 Multi-Session is a unique feature included with WVD. This core element circumvents the common challenge in the healthcare sector: medical staff can’t be tied to a desk all day, and few hospitals can afford multiple computers for each employee, especially when budgets are tight and patient care is the top priority.

This feature is only available in Azure, letting you run a virtual version of Windows 10, with multiple users able to securely log in and out to access a true Windows 10 desktop experience as required.

This lets staff at every level work remotely, picking up tasks and checking in, wherever they are in the building or out on the road doing home visits. It’s an opportunity for NHS trusts to reduce costs without compromising the user experience and to save time in writing up hand-written notes when they’re back in the office.

There are significant consolidation savings that could be realised here, without any compromise on user experience – the only commercial consideration is the cost of compute to run the Windows 10 Virtual Machine instances in Azure. And with options such as reserved instances in Azure, there’s further options to reduce costs.

2. Flexibility and innovation

No two NHS trusts are the same. Each has its own unique and nuanced processes and challenges to overcome, and methods for delivering exceptional patient care. Too many off-the-shelf technology solutions are restrictive, when what’s required is flexibility in your IT systems and the apps you use.

FSLogix is another key functionality directly built into the WVD.

Historically, Office 365 apps has played havoc with VDIs. Windows Virtual Desktop addresses these issues head-on, with FSLogix featuring software capabilities like Profile Container and App Masking to ensure a seamless Office 365 ProPlus experience for all medical staff.

With a virtual desktop that’s freely available to all healthcare professionals, you’re also able to make the choices that best impact your healthcare organisation. By harnessing the power of the Azure cloud, you’re easily able to start a proof-of-concept in minutes, scale to a pilot scheme, and produce results quicker than ever. When targeting enhanced productivity or dramatically improving the care you offer, speed and innovation often determine success.

3. Secure management

With Windows Virtual Desktop, you have the flexibility to select and deploy virtual machines using secure Windows 10 images via the Azure marketplace, or you can import your own image if you have invested into and want to use the same base as your physical endpoint estate.

For ongoing management, you can also utilise familiar technologies such as System Center Configuration Manager or InTune, with the option to also use native services such as Azure Update management via the WVD Management portal.

4. Power-up your virtual desktop

The employee experience is a core part of your healthcare output – a motivated and productive employee means superior patient care, delivered to the highest possible degree. When it comes to technology, one of the main barriers to this is forcing your healthcare professionals to undertake frustrating workarounds because they lack the right tools.

WVD is designed to integrate with external components and solutions from key industry partners offering VDI solutions. Citrix, as a leading example have partnered with Microsoft at an engineering level since the inception of the WVD. Microsoft has worked closely with these partners to ensure our combined solutions work seamlessly, making the employee experience as smooth as can be – because no healthcare professional wishes to waste time on tools that barely allow them to do the job while patients suffer. With your virtual desktop equipped with even greater capability, staff will have everything they need to care for your patients.

Powering healthcare at no additional cost

Now that your trust already has access to the power of WVD via the Windows Enterprise E5 licence – and at no additional cost – take it one step further, by combining it with the power of the Microsoft cloud to create a truly modern desktop experience for the benefit of all staff and patients.

Find out more

Empower care teams

Improve operational outcomes

Deliver personalised care

About the author

Andy Launchbury is Technology Strategist in Microsoft UK’s healthcare team. He likens this role to a healthcare CTO with a focus on the cloud, and works to understand the challenges and innovations healthcare customers are addressing, and to architect solutions using technologies offered by Microsoft and its partners. Andy has a single aim: to help move the NHS and the healthcare industry forward through technologies.

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