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2020, the year where the country went into lock down. In the UK we were told to work from home. This got me thinking more about options for rapid deployment of remote working without missing end user / device security.

Lock down and those with laptops and remote access, off they went. The desktop systems users, started looking to purchase laptops, but there was limited availability. The laptop, a great short-term fix, but do not forget the bigger picture, security of end users/devices and working conditions.

Is there an alternative, potentially faster and more secure out the box option which could also be explored? Something which is quick to deploy and manage than the time it takes to build, deploy and lock down a laptop.

Now if you host a Citrix environment or VMware Horizon then you might find you have an alternative option. Consider Thin / Zero Clients, in this example we are looking at the 10ZiG 6000q series offering. One of the nice features that 10ZiG offer is a FREE 10ZiG Manager tool which can control your devices over the internet. Anyone who has used Thin or Zero Clients before will already know that you can centrally manage and apply security controls over all the devices, but maybe you didn’t know an end user could use the device from home with a few tweaks using the cloud agent included in 10 ZiG Manager.

Does you environment already use VMware Horizon? Could you extend your VMware Horizon environment to be internet facing with VMware Unified Access Gateway in place? VMware Unified Access Gateway will allow you to secure external access to your corporate VDI desktops and applications on VMware Horizon® 7 on-premise instance.

However before running out and buying 10ZiG devices for everyone and saving on future laptop and desktop costs, consider the end users and build up scenarios for each type of device. There are various models of 10ZiG devices that can support an office user to a power user. Below you can see some thoughts around how end users might work during lock down.

In the scenarios, I found anyone who previously regularly worked from the office with a desktop could start working from home using a Zero client. The experience is like using a laptop, but I was forced into office working mode.

If you are working from home for long periods of time, things that you may have taken for granted in the office now become a concern for home. People should use an external monitor, keyboard and mouse. Have a comfy chair and desk to work at. Also a more important topic over looked and there isn’t a technical solution to resolve, finding a way of controlling Work and Home life. A desk / dedicated space to work from is the ideal way to identify to yourself the difference between work and home. If you were considering how some one works from home, ship the 10ZiG device with a monitor, keyboard and mouse. A laptop would add flexibility to roam around but you cant enforce a good working environment.

With all the above in mind 10 ZiG offer a FREE demo device to trial for 30days.

So I took this FREE demo, utilised my VMware vExpert skills, connected to the VMware Horizon environment from home and deployed a 10ZiG Zero Client, managed by a cloud agent and running in kiosk mode.

Now, I’ve just completed the trial of a 10ZiG demo device, utilising the kiosk style VMware Horizon end user experience when working from home. If your interested to see how simple the process was, take a moment to watch the 10 min video “Demo to Deployed” by Stephen Hackers.

This video shows how I ordered and configured a demo device and connected to the VMware Horizon desktop when working from home.