In our latest series, we will be getting to know some of the influential figures that contribute to Access IT Automations growth and development and find out with the company and what IT automation means to them. #WeEnableModern Desktop
Little did Microsoft know how much the world would need to rely on something they, in 2015, coined the "Modern Desktop" to describe a Microsoft 365, Windows 10, and Office 365 ProPlus based desktop. Its purpose is to let employees work from anywhere productively as they collaborate with their teammates while always staying up-to-date, secure, and compliant.
Today, I want to have a closer look at what we mean by Modern Desktop Enablement and why it is so crucial for any organization right now.
I heard about "The Great Resignation", a term coined by Anthony Klotz, a business professor at Texas A&M University, only a few weeks ago. Here in the United Kingdom, we also have other issues we have to deal with right now, like the fallout of Brexit, the lorry driver visa debacle, and now the resulting fuel shortage. So I wasn't paying close attention to the US job market. At first, I couldn't make sense of the two happening simultaneously. But the more I read about it, the more I worry about how enterprises and large organizations will manage their IT in the coming two to three years.
Most people know that Microsoft had announced that Windows 10 was going to be the last Windows ever released, but what most don't know is that even Windows 10 has had an End-of-Life date from the very beginning. As it says on Microsoft's Windows 10 Enterprise and Education Modern Lifecycle page, "Microsoft will continue to support at least one release of Windows 10 Semi-Annual Channel until October 14, 2025. The below table reflects the released versions to date."
In November 2020, we showed you how you use Access Capture, our automated application packaging and testing solution, to automate your MSIX and app attach creation in order to accelerate your application modernization journey, and with it, enable your Modern Desktop including Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD).
Today, we are thrilled to show you how you can also use Access Capture to automate your VMware App Volumes creation process. App Volumes refers to a set of application and user management solutions that run on VMware Horizon, Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, and RDSH virtual environments.
We are often asked this two-fold question: How do our IT Automation products address the currently known issues that exist in a client's IT environment, and what happens when new issues are discovered, new apps or updates come into play, etc.? As an answer, this post will discuss, from a high level, our process for providing our clients with IT Automation that will take them into their target platform (i.e., Windows 10, Office 365, etc.) and explain how we use both standard and tailored fixes.
In the past few product-oriented blog posts, we have talked a lot about getting your estate ready for the Modern Desktop using Access Capture for application packaging and testing. For example, we've discussed ways to help you migrate onto Windows 10 and Office 365 or manage your environment using Evergreen IT in order to keep up with the pace of updates for those products. But it is equally important to have the ability to check if your applications work in a variety of different Windows environments. Thanks to some new features, this is now easier than ever.
Today, I am pleased to announce a new Access Capture capability that will be such a value-add to many of our clients: support for Windows 10 Enterprise Multi-Session. We are constantly adding to and improving our IT automation tool stack, updating it with the latest from Microsoft so that not only can our clients take advantage of the latest Microsoft technology, but they can also have options for their Windows 10 deployment.
The real problem of Evergreen IT Management isn't figuring out how to efficiently (and, let's face it — fast enough) migrate your entire estate from one version of Windows 10 to a newer version. It also isn't the volume of change if you are managing your Windows 10 OS lifecycle in conjunction with Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise in addition to a continuous hardware refresh. That all can be managed very well with the right tooling and automation. The real dilemma goes much deeper.
In my opinion, the dilemma that most enterprises and large organizations struggle with emanates from the very intricate dependencies you simply cannot get around when managing Evergreen IT. In other words, you have to upgrade a whole other slew of infrastructure dependencies — each managed by a different, siloed-off IT department.
The technology industry is notorious for its love of acronyms, particularly when it comes to cloud computing. With cloud-based solutions becoming increasingly essential for every company and industry worldwide, three key cloud service models have emerged as the backbone of the cloud revolution: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). The phrase "as-a-Service" refers to a wide variety of technology services delivered to companies or individuals via the internet by a third-party service provider.
According to a recent McKinsey study, 94% of the UK workforce lack the skills that will be required in 2030: "Without concerted action by employers, two-thirds of the UK workforce could lack basic digital skills by 2030, while more than 10 million people could be under-skilled in leadership, communication, and decision-making,” the report said.
This alone is a drastic issue to deal with — which only is made worse by new, additional challenges the country is facing: the wide-reaching effects on the general workforce and IT environments created by COVID and by the exit from the European Union at the end of the year (BREXIT), and new labour laws like IR35 which further narrows access to available resources. Let's have a closer look at the situation before we talk about some ways you can start to mitigate the associated risks.