Innovations across digital employee experience offerings help simplify and optimize hybrid work
Data and intelligence play a key role in automating and implementing a successful hybrid work strategy. However, a comprehensive approach must be taken to maximize the benefits. During VMware Explore São Paulo, VMware announced modern artificial intelligence (AI) integrations to the Anywhere Workspace platform, part of the VMware Cross-Cloud services portfolio, that automatically optimize the employee experience, drive new vulnerability control use cases, and simplify application lifecycle management. VMware Anywhere Workspace is the only hybrid work platform that integrates digital employee experience (DEX), virtual desktop apps and infrastructure (DaaS and VDI), unified endpoint management (UEM), and security to deliver a secure and seamlessly on any device or location.
“Last year, we announced our vision for autonomous workspace as a way for organizations to address the challenges brought by the hybrid format,” said Shankar Iyer, senior vice president and general manager of End-User Computing at VMware. “We were excited to reveal new advancements to our customers that expand data sources and insights, integrate with technology partners to improve security, and unify application delivery strategy across all apps and virtual desktops. These innovations continue to advance our mission to deliver the next evolution of digital workspaces.”
Integrated, AI-Driven Platform Scales Experience Management
VMware continues to leverage data, intelligence, and automation to improve the employee and information technology (IT) experience by introducing new insights and playbooks based on vastly expanded data and machine learning algorithms that enhance IT remediation capabilities. DEX. These updates expand data access, help strengthen VMware Insights, and enable more issues to be fixed.
VMware will now enable the delivery of new app performance scores in addition to existing experience scores across mobile, desktop and virtual environments. If a software-as-a-service (SaaS) application service goes down, IT will be proactively alerted and employees will be automatically notified. This means you can quickly resolve the outage without having to deal with support tickets and without employees wasting time trying to access unavailable services.
But simply providing IT with more data isn't enough to enable them to work smarter. VMware's AI-driven Insights feature now provides anomaly detection that informs responsible staff about potential experience issues across frontline devices and VDI spaces, as well as mobile and desktop environments. The announcement of new playbooks, made at VMware Explore São Paulo, allows IT to create step-by-step remediation workflows to resolve incidents more efficiently and use success rate analysis techniques to automate the resolution process and optimize implementation over time.
“Workspace ONE Intelligence is a game changer for us when it comes to automating lifecycle management in unified endpoint management (UEM). We use it to automatically tag devices and assign them to intelligence groups. We also use several dashboard templates to monitor security posture and help remediate high-risk security threats,” explains George March, manager of digital workspace and development for USA Health's Information Technology department. “The next step in the development plan is to implement the IT service management (ITSM) connector. With the addition of remediation playbooks, we are very excited about how this will streamline workflows for help desk support teams.”
Exclusive partner integration powers new security use cases and manageability
Ensuring complete security and manageability for today's geographically distributed workforce is critical and requires a comprehensive approach to addressing vulnerabilities, which includes: assessment, prioritization, remediation, out-of-band support, and reporting. Collaboration with a best-in-class partner ecosystem that offers speed, breadth, and depth in vulnerability management is necessary to protect against sophisticated attack vectors. VMware is committed to innovating with technology partners to provide customers with more secure and seamless hybrid experiences.
At the event, VMware also announced an expanded partnership with Intel through a unique, cloud-native integration of Workspace ONE with Intel vPro®. This “chip-to-cloud” junction makes it easy to protect and remotely manage work devices entirely from the cloud, without the need for additional on-premises infrastructure and management software. With line-of-sight and out-of-band control of devices with vPro technology, IT teams have information about service option (OS) vulnerabilities and visibility to quickly and efficiently reduce the impact of potential exploits. Using Workspace ONE, customers have centralized visibility into Intel vPro-powered PCs and accelerate patching cycles for devices located outside office perimeters, even if they are idle or powered off. This improves security and compliance by increasing patch saturation with fewer remediation steps and reducing potential disruptions to employee productivity.
Modern application management simplifies virtual environments
Managing and delivering applications in VDI, DaaS, and published app environments has become increasingly complex and inefficient due to the silos of legacy tools used. Recently, VMware launched Apps on Demand, powered by VMware App Volumes, to intelligently unify application management and deployment across published app hosts or non-persistent desktop environments, all based on real-time usability.
VMware also announced further expansion of App Volumes support to provide on-demand apps for persistent virtual desktops. Customers with VMware Horizon persistent environments will be able to use App Volumes, now available in beta, to capture apps once and serve them to many persistent virtual desktops. This automates the process of delivering apps with up to 99% compatibility and reduces management time and costs for any desktop environment or published app. VMware App Volumes is the only solution that can help organizations provision and manage apps across VMware Horizon, Citrix, Microsoft, and Amazon virtual desktops and deployments as part of VMware's Apps Everywhere vision.
Boeing: “workforce innovator with hybrid work model”
The Boeing Company (Boeing) leveraged VMware Workspace ONE in the United States and 65 other countries to support its global workforce of 140,000 employees who develop, manufacture and deliver commercial aircraft, defense products and space systems for the clients. During VMware Explore 2023 Las Vegas in August, the company was named “Hybrid Workforce Innovator” at the 2023 VMware Customer Achievement Awards for the Americas for empowering its workforce, which can work anywhere place in the world, which improved the user experience and reinforced the security of devices and applications.
“VMware Anywhere Workspace helps us manage and secure endpoints, provide a common platform to access apps and tools, and provide a digital experience for our employees,” commented Kristina Ross, director of Research & Technology at Boeing Workplace Solutions. “Workspace ONE helped streamline our transition from traditional PC lifecycle management to modern Windows 10 management, which was made possible by moving to a SaaS-based solution across the enterprise. Today, we have a unified view to oversee all endpoint requirements. Additionally, adopting SaaS has improved our scalability and ability to shift focus from infrastructure to business-facing solutions.”
