For most organizations that migrated to a new version of Windows in the past two years, the cost and frustration was not only high, the resources required were crippling. But ready or not, chances are a new migration project will soon be on your to-do list. In fact, almost a quarter of all PCs will be upgraded to Windows 10 within a year. That’s more than 350 million devices. It’s already on more than 100 million devices, and counting.
With employees upgrading their personal devices to Windows 10 at a record rate, the demand for Windows 10 on the business desktop will be extraordinary, forcing most companies to adopt Windows 10 at a faster rate than they have ever adopted a new version of Windows before. So how can you face an inevitable Windows 10 migration without the madness By adopting a new approach to user profiles through the use of advanced User Environment Management (UEM) technology. This will streamline your adoption and solve your migration problem for good.
UEM technology delivers the ability to separate user profiles from the OS so you can enable users to seamlessly move from OS to OS without managing multiple profiles and policies. Rather than operate in a continuous state of migration, you can seamlessly move user personalization, files and settings between disparate Windows operating system versions – even run multiple Windows versions in parallel – without impacting user productivity.
Consider these six ways UEM technology will reduce the cost, and pain, of migrations for good:
* Simplify data migration between desktops – For users, one of the greatest frustrations when migrating is misplacing critical files and folders. This can cost hours of lost employee productivity as users search multiple network shares for their vital content. The risk Users will turn to public cloud file sync and share services to store their content, creating a “shadow IT” environment where company data is in unknown hands. An advanced UEM solution solves this challenge by centrally storing user content within the IT storage infrastructure where it’s safe, protected and easily accessible, regardless of the Windows device a user chooses to use.
* Minimize application package customization – When performing a traditional migration, one of the top challenges is preparing user applications for effective use on the new OS. UEM technology streamlines this process by decoupling application settings from the package itself and automating modifications of application configurations based on the destination OS. This saves hours of application package customization time and further enables user flexibility by allowing users to access their applications seamlessly from any desktop, regardless of the OS it may be running.
* Secure endpoints from malicious threats – One of the largest time and cost drains that can impact today’s enterprise IT is a security breach. Even with robust antivirus solutions, endpoint systems are at constant risk of zero-day threats that can wreak havoc in just a matter of hours. With UEM technology, endpoints are protected because the attack surface that threat actors can exploit is reduced. Using privilege management and application control technology, these solutions prevent unknown executables from penetrating the endpoint because they simply lack the privilege or authorization. This means endpoints are secure from any threat that isn’t authorized to be executed.
* Avoid roaming profile corruption – When Roaming Profiles are used to persist user preferences and settings from desktop to desktop you are opening the floodgates for the consumption of a significant amount of disk storage, logon delays and corruption. This increases support costs and impacts user productivity. Using an advanced UEM solution will eliminate the risk of corrupted roaming profiles so that your users are productive and your storage requirements remain slim.
* Minimize support requests for system rollbacks – With a UEM solution users are able to easily and automatically self-heal when malicious changes or unexpected system failures occur. Users can simply rollback the desktop or application settings to a preferred working state without the need to ever call the helpdesk. This saves hours of IT staff resources and improves overall user productivity.
* Enable future, even ongoing, migration – Inevitably Windows will announce new fixes and versions. By untethering your user profiles from their environment you can accomplish migrations far more easily, and most importantly, enhance productivity through use of a consistent desktop that always feels familiar to the user. As a result, you’ll never have to worry about the high cost and resource drain of a migration again. Every time a new OS is introduced you’ll be ready without impacting user uptime or draining your IT staff resources.
Don’t remain stuck in a constant state of migration. Consider Windows 10 your opportunity to eliminate the migration headache for good.
AppSense is the industry’s leading provider of User Environment Management solutions which deliver unprecedented user productivity while securing and simplifying workspace management at scale across physical, virtual and cloud-delivered desktops.