Managed.IT - issue 58

END USER COMPUTING 31 www.managedITmag.co.uk Lockdown has been something of a double-edged sword for IGEL, provider of a next generation operating system for accessing, managing and securing cloud workspaces. On one hand, Covid’s social distancing and economic ramifications have made the act of selling software harder and slower. On the other, the shift to homeworking has renewed focus on end user computing and encouraged organisations to look at long-term work from home (WFH) strategies. This, says IGEL Chief Marketing Officer Simon Townsend, has given the company a real boost and more pipeline and more opportunity in the first six months of 2020 than in the whole of 2019. “When Work From Home came about, people grabbed their laptops and IT scrambled around to give them access, perhaps not worrying too much about security or performance. Now, organisations realise that the future will be a blend of working from home and working from the office. So, VDI and Desktop as a Service (DaaS) – the concept of having a Windows desktop hosted somewhere in the cloud and using an endpoint equipped with IGEL software to connect to it – has given us a tailwind,” he said. Townsend argues that as businesses start to recover from the initial panic of equipping a remote workforce and consider more secure, resilient, flexible and productive ways to support a hybrid workforce in the long-term, many are revisiting virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and DaaS. “Typically, an organisation has only got a couple of options. One is to go out and buy 1,000 laptops for the 1,000 employees who are now working from home. But that’s expensive in terms of capital expenditure and is a nightmare to manage. Secondly, you can deploy something like VDI, but you’ve then got to invest in all the hardware in your datacentre and the infrastructure. Or, you can implement Desktop as a Service, which you can scale up and down and switch on and off. “COVID-19 has prompted organisations to say ‘We just need to go to a provider and switch on a service in the same way we would a Zoom account or an Office 365 account. We just want to turn around to Microsoft and say spin me up 1,000 desktops. I will pay monthly for them and I don’t want to worry about infrastructure’. So Desktop as a Service is seeing significant growth,” he said. Management and control IGEL benefits from this trend because its Linux-based operating system, which it describes as the OS for next generation workspaces, helps organisations migrate to the cloud very quickly and address some of the issues associated with implementing VDI and DaaS. As well as providing secure access to cloud workspaces from the likes of Citrix, Amazon, Microsoft and VMware, the IGEL OS offers centralised management and control of a distributed portfolio of endpoints, supports a large ecosystem of compatible hardware, software and applications, and can be installed on any existing x86-64 computer, laptop/MacBook or thin client, removing the need for organisations to invest in new hardware. “Ultimately, organisations are looking at how they can save money. What they don’t want to have to do is go out and buy a ton of kit for every single employee. As organisations start to formulate long-term remote working strategies, IGEL is hoping to ease the transition to VDI and Desktop as a Service with a new product testing and verification programme. James Goulding reports Confidence in the cloud n Cost savings from retiring multiple legacy systems, including hosting, maintenance and staffing costs; n Better compliance from the ability to search for phrases or metadata and ensure that data and objects are not degraded, lost or accessed incorrectly; and n Speedy retrieval of information, thanks to features such as the retention of previously saved and shared searches. A particular benefit of Long-Term Archive is its smooth data migration and ingestion process, even from old and rare source systems – an area where many preservation projects fall down. A visual workflow tool delivers an easy to understand migration plan, with the option of rule-based gateways for data validation, metadata enrichment and file conversions. Ultimately, Long-Term Archive brings digital preservation best practice to the commercial world, embracing all the tools and functions available and presenting them in a business friendly manner. www.formpipe.com Formpipe is a leading developer of ECM-software and Information Quality Management and eQMS software solutions, with thousands of customers worldwide, in both the public and private sectors. Its software enables organisations to capture, process, store, archive and supply information in a systematic and controlled manner. In addition to Long-Term Archive, Formpipe’s product portfolio includes Lasernet, which offers unrivalled integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365, NAV, SAP and Infor, along with other ERP solutions and delivers business documents in almost any format. Its intuitive drag-and-drop capabilities ensure that creating layouts for print or electronic distribution is simple and accurate. Additional functionality supports faster ERP system upgrades; easier maintenance of visual identity, archiving and scanning; more effective management of existing legislation and standards, such as SOX, EuroSox and Basel II. A Microsoft Gold Partner and member of Microsoft’s Technology Adoption Program (TAP), Formpipe Lasernet is sold and supported through a certified network of global partners. Simon Townsend Continued...