Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) has long been the solution companies turn to for maintaining security and compliance on unmanaged laptops. But VDI is notorious for hindering productivity due to connectivity issues, latency, and incompatibility with local, native workflows on end-user laptops.
As work and life continue to overlap, workforces become more geographically dispersed, and companies hire more contractors and offshore workers, security solutions must evolve to meet the needs of today’s agile workforce – wherever and on whichever device they’re working on.
When users can work from anywhere, security solutions must work everywhere
The only way to ensure productivity, protection, and privacy in the modern mode of work is to empower employees and users to work locally. That means accessing applications, SaaS platforms, files, and data natively on their laptop without relying on remote access via traditional VDI or cloud-hosted Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) solutions.
In order to balance user productivity and privacy, IT leaders should ensure any solution they consider meets these four criteria that separate modern, local solutions from legacy VDI:
- User-centric: Deliver a familiar, comfortable user experience
- Risk-conscious: Safeguard against the new and the nuanced cybersecurity risks of modern work
- Life-centric: Provide seamless toggling between work and life
- Future-centric: Support growth with a distributed, scalable solution
How Venn’s Blue Border™ steps in as the industry’s leading virtual desktop alternative
VDI has run its course. It’s time to embrace a virtual desktop alternative that satisfies the needs of today’s workforces.
Delivering the centralized management and critical information security benefits of legacy VDI, a Secure Enclave leverages the power and flexibility of modern endpoint devices and their local browser-, desktop- or mobile-based applications, eliminating the complexity and performance issues. No more cumbersome toggling or unacceptable delays when on Zoom calls.
Venn’s Blue Border™ is similar to an MDM solution, but for laptops. Work lives in a company-controlled Secure Enclave installed on the user’s computer, where all data is encrypted and access is managed. Work applications run locally within the Enclave – visually indicated by a blue border – isolating and protecting business activity from any personal use on the same computer. Company data is secured without controlling the entire device while ensuring end-user privacy for everything outside the Blue Border.
Protecting sensitive data – and user privacy
Venn goes beyond just protecting company data – it also ensures end-user privacy. The technology distinguishes work resources from personal apps and information with a tell-tale visual cue (a blue border around work windows), so users know exactly what is being protected and managed by their company vs. what is completely private to them and invisible to their company. This intuitive separation between personal and work is a necessity in today’s workforces, where many employees are using their own devices for work activities or using their work devices on home networks.
Organizations’ sensitive data and digital assets are protected even when passwords have been compromised or malware protection fails with Venn’s advanced data loss prevention (DLP) s and filesystem capabilities. Venn’s work data containment features include clipboard (copy/paste) controls, screen capture, sharing approval, printing controls and work file isolation – all ensuring that users cannot purposefully or accidentally share sensitive information with the wrong parties or over an unsecured network.
Also embedded in Venn is work file protection features, including ransomware defense, download and upload restrictions, and policy-based sharing restrictions. Organizations can rest assured knowing that information will not be spread through private or personal channels and that they are reducing their attack surface against cybersecurity threats.
Regulated, security-minded organizations can achieve the levels of compliance, control, and visibility needed in today’s hybrid work environments and increasingly risky cybersecurity landscape with Venn. And the upgrade from the sluggish performance and cumbersome user experience of legacy VDI makes for happier, more productive workers – all while ensuring compliance with security policies.
For decades, VDI and client hypervisors have been accepted as the only solutions for protecting sensitive work applications and data. It was thought that everything needed to be hosted or virtualized away from the user’s host operating system or physical desktop. Venn’s Blue Border is breaking this paradigm. Security can happen locally. Applications can run as intended, and users don’t have to suffer from unnecessary complications or surrender their productivity to data protection and security.
