Tag: virtual desktop infrastructure solutions

Moving Ahead as Managers

Posted on by Subhadeep Datta
Bindu

Bindu Vijayan

When I was recently asked to drive employee experience at GAVS, I thought, what an opportunity to support a group who are deliverers of high-value systems! I have personally seen the Leadership’s wisdom and the passion to drive GAVS forward as a meaningful and purposeful company. This is an opportunity to help deliver fine-tuned responses through earnest feedback.  And thus, started a somewhat ministerial role – listening truly, relating to what is being heard, because we believe there is a huge potential to strengthen bonds.

Operational execution takes place from the Managers, and here at GAVS, the value system is entrenched in the belief that seniors serve the needs of others; the inverse pyramid.  I have seen our CEO, Sumit Ganguli, treating everyone like a Leader, and everyone is given the responsibility to know and understand the company and the business. The earnest attempt is to have employees relate to GAVS, be the best brand ambassadors for the values and culture we stand for. 

Often times, we as Managers are going through the stress from genuinely caring to get everything right and move projects and teams forward along with the company, but it might be a totally different story with the teams we are managing – things aren’t going too well, and even before we realize what is going on, people leave us.

This points us to a need to recalibrate ourselves and our managerial style, and sometimes our self-calibration can have profound implications for the organization.

Was it a single event that had team members leave? It most times isn’t, it is a collection of problems…no quick fixes or silver bullets, but let’s take the medicine, the whole course, that would turn things around. We have all been on both sides and know what it is to open up and give honest feedback, the genuine hope and excitement about change, and as Managers today, we are happy to actually have individuals open up.   

Who am I as a Manager?

Ed Catmull, President, and co-founder of Pixar writes, “We acknowledge we will always have problems, many of them hidden from our view; that we work hard to uncover these problems, even if doing so means making ourselves uncomfortable”

As a Manager, let me take a real hard look at myself in the mirror to see what I might be doing wrong.  Why are my team members quitting? How do I lead? Is it through ‘Power’, as in our real inner power to lead with positivity and assertiveness, or is my leadership about ‘force’, where my authority, screaming, bullying, manipulating, sycophancy that drives my team along with me?

Making time for everyone

Let us make time to meet every single person in our team even when we are managing large teams. Scheduling that one crucial hour with each team member is giving them the opportunity to be a reviewer, exchange seats with them, and see it through their eyes.  Keep the agenda for the meeting to speak only about how we can improve managing them, all defenses down.

Demonstrate we see them as our peers, listen…

Listen to everything they have to say, without interrupting. Be a true listener, and promises are to be made and to be kept. The worst thing for us to do is to have that ‘excellent chat’ and go back to the ‘same old’.

Get straight forward feedback from the team and give them immunity for saying it the way it is

Sometimes we need to hear the little harsh truths about ourselves. And the team doesn’t want to see us defensive about our ways of impacting them wrong. We have to hear them out, and everything they want to say, and that’s the first step for them to choose to stay. People should feel safe to talk about things they want as improvements, and to be heard on what is working vs things that are not working.

Don’t wait on actions

“Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes, but no plans” – Peter Drucker

I don’t mean there is a magic wand that we can use for everything to turn good overnight. But continuous improvements, by way of small consistent steps, should be visible, and getting everyone involved in it would be a great way to get it right. Everybody wants to see progress.

Here are some toxic traits that call for recalibration;

  • Highly irritable, short-tempered
  • Arrogant, unapproachable
  • Getting defensive about constructive criticism
  • Overtly dominant
  • Belittling other people’s feelings
  • Highly controlling
  • Manipulative

Today, it is interesting to see lots of new-age companies where there are zero hierarchies, employees and leaders are like family. The millennials and the Gen Z are comfortable being who they really are, and we Managers from different demographics must simply jump in and learn from their signature authenticity.

About the Author –

Bindu Vijayan takes care of Employee Experience at GAVS, she works towards creating an environment that’s conducive to passion and make employees feel valued as individuals. She is an avid reader, enjoys music and poetry, and is a devoted mother and a grand-mother. An ardent Kafka fan, she relates to his famous quote, “Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.”

#EmpathyChallenge – 3 Simple Ways to Practice Empathy Consciously

Posted on by Subhadeep Datta

Padma Ravichandran

A pertinent question for the post COVID workforce is, can empathy be learnt? Should it be practiced only by the leaders, or by everyone – can it be seamlessly woven into the fabric of the organization? We are seeing that dynamics at play for remote teams is little unpredictable, making each day uniquely challenging. Empathy is manifested through mindful behaviours, where one’s action is recognized as genuine, personal, and specific to the situation. A few people can be empathetic all the time, a few, practice it consciously, and a few are unaware of it.

Empathy is a natural human response that can be practiced by everyone at work for nurturing an environment of trust. We often confuse empathy for sympathy – while sympathy is feeling sorry for one’s situation, empathy is understanding one’s feelings and needs, and putting the effort to offer authentic support. It requires a shift in perspective, and building trust, respect, and compassion at a deeper level. As Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft says, “Empathy is a muscle that needs to be exercised.”

Here are three ways to consciously practice empathy at work –

  • Going beyond yourself

It takes a lot to forget how we feel that day, or what is priority for us. However, to be empathetic, one needs to be less judgemental. When one is consciously practicing empathy, one needs to be patient with yourself, your thoughts, and not compare yourself with the person you are empathizing with. If we get absorbed by our own needs, it gets difficult to be generous and compassionate. We need to remember empathy leads to influence and respect, and for that we should not get blind sighted by our perceptions.

  • Being a mindful and intentional listener

While practicing empathy, one has refrain from criticism, and be mindful of not talking about one’s problems. We may get sympathetic and give unsolicited advice. Sometimes it only takes to be an intentional listener, by avoiding distractions, and having a very positive body language, and demeanour. This will enable us to ask right questions and collaborate towards a solution.

  • Investing in the person

Very often, we support our colleagues and co-workers by responding to their email requests. However, by building positive workplace relationships, and knowing the person beyond his/her email id, makes it much easier to foster empathy. Compassion needs to be not just in words, but in action too, and that can happen only by knowing the person. Taking interest in a co-worker or a team member, beyond a professional capability, does not come out of thin air. It takes conscious continuous efforts to get to know the person, showing care and concern, which will help us to relate to the myriad challenges they go through – be it chronic illness, child care that correlates to his/her ability to engaged at work. It will enable us to personalize the experience, and see the person’s point of view, holistically.

When we take that genuine interest in how we make others feel and experience, we start mindfully practicing empathy. Empathy fosters respect. Empathy helps resolves conflicts better, empathy builds stronger teams, empathy inspires one another to work towards collective goals, and empathy breaks authority. Does it take that extra bit of time to consciously practice it? Yes, but it is all worth it.

References

About the Author –

Padma is intrigued by Organization Culture and Behavior at workplace that impact employee experience. She is also passionate about driving meaningful initiatives for enabling women to Lean In, along with her fellow Sheroes. She enjoys reading books, journaling, yoga and learning more about life through the eyes of her 8-year-old son.

Celebrating Inspirational Women

Posted on by Subhadeep Datta

Rajeswari S

“Each of us has that right, that possibility, to invent ourselves daily. If a person does not invent herself, she will be invented. So, to be bodacious enough to invent ourselves is wise.”  – Maya Angelou

Yet another International Women’s Day is around the corner! Every year, our strength, perseverance, and glory reach newer heights. I would like to take this opportunity to celebrate some inspirational women.

The Prestigious Firsts!

All-women crew

Captain Zoya Aggarwal, Captain Papagari Thanmai, Captain Akansha Sonaware and Captain Shivani Manhas of the all-female pilot crew of Air India made history by completing the longest non-stop commercial flight ever. They covered more than 8,600 miles and flew over the North Pole.

Kamala Harris

She is the United States’ first female vice president, the highest-ranking female elected official in U.S. history, the first African American vice president, and the first Asian American vice president. Kamala Harris became the Vice President upon inauguration in 2021 alongside President Joe Biden in the 2020 US election.

Women with Amazing Minds and Hearts

Shalini Saraswathi

  • A modern-day woman, balancing her corporate job, blogging, and fitness.
  • A blade marathon runner and an adventure enthusiast.
  • Lost both her arms and legs to a rare form of bacterial infection. Hard work, focus, and perseverance became a pole of strength. She soon completed a 10k marathon with an outstanding record of 1 hour and 35 minutes!
  • Awarded several times with the ‘Iconic Woman Award’. 

Vandana Shah

  • At 28, abused by in-laws and thrown out of her marital home at 2 am; had little money, nowhere to go, and no one to turn to.
  • Today, a leading divorce lawyer and the founder of India’s first non-judgemental divorce support group that provides a positive perspective and focuses on rebuilding life even while going through a divorce.
  • Author of 360 Degrees Back to Life – a Litigant’s Humorous Perspective on Divorce.
  • Launched the world’s and India’s first legal app, DivorceKart, which aims to answer all legal queries regarding divorce instantly.

Daniela Rus

  • Romanian-American roboticist, an MIT professor and the first female head of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL), one of the largest and most prestigious AI research labs in the world.
  • Rus’ ground-breaking research has contributed immensely to networked collaborative robots (robots that can work together and communicate with one another), self-reconfigurable robots (robots that can autonomously change their structure to adapt to their environment), and soft robots (robots without rigid bodies).

Leila Jana

  • A social entrepreneur and a great young Indian origin humanitarian.
  • Pioneer in the field of impact sourcing.
  • Leila founded Samasource in 2008 with the mission of giving work, not aid, by hiring workers in impoverished areas, training them in AI data annotation, and providing the technology to plug their skills into the global digital economy where they could earn living wages. 

Pappammal

  • 105-year-old Pappamal, a centenarian from Tamil Nadu, India, was conferred the Padma Shri (fourth-highest civilian award in India) for her work in organic farming for the past 70 years!
  • Does organic farming in about 2.5 acres of her land; cultivates a variety of crops including millets, bananas, and okra.
  • A part of the TN Agricultural University’s advisory committee, and keeps abreast of the latest developments in organic farming by taking part in conferences.

Why Women make Great Leaders

While we see men and women leaders run several successful businesses, does the word “leadership” mean the same to them? A survey conducted by a US talent management solutions company says, 65% of women (versus 56% of men) said they view leaders as those who share their knowledge and connect with their colleagues to help the team and business. When women bring this attitude into managerial roles, it makes them more effective as leaders.

Emily He, Oracle’s Sr. VP of the Human Capital Management Cloud Business Group says “In contrast to men, who tend to be career-centric and want to maximize their financial return from work, women view work more holistically, as a component of their overall life plan. They’re more likely to approach their careers in a self-reflective way and value factors such as meaning, purpose, connection with co-workers and work-life integration.”

Hear it from other women leaders too.

On being nurturing

“One of the key aspects of leadership is the ability to help your team members develop their own skills and strengths. Women are naturally nurturing, which in the best scenarios can translate to helping those around you succeed.” – Marilyn Heywood Paige, VP Marketing, FiG Advertising

On valuing work-life balance“We are able to balance professional and personal leadership skills. It’s easier to approach a women leader with a personal request, or a sensitive question. I care about my team and their well-being. I also find women more proactive in becoming mentors, and sometimes it’s already such an open and communicative relationship that the transition to mentor is easy.” – Amy Killoran, Creative Manager, I Love Travel

On wearing many hats

“They often balance careers, households and even aging parents, among other things. Women pivot, adjust and focus on solutions. Resting in the doom and gloom can be time-consuming, so many shift to find positive solutions to life and work problems.” – Gretchen Halpin, Chief Strategy Officer, Hewins Financial Advisors

We’re Tough, We’re Ambitious, We’re Different!

References:

About the Author –

Rajeswari is part of the IP team at GAVS. She has been involved in technical and creative content development for the past 13 years. She is passionate about music and writing and spends her free time watching movies or going for a highway drive.

Vision for 2021

Posted on by Subhadeep Datta

Sumit Ganguli

CEO, GAVS Technologies

God, grant me the serenity to accept things, I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

The events of 2020 have reaffirmed in me the ethos conveyed by this stanza, from the Serenity Prayer.

For us, COVID has been up close and personal. One of our key clients, Bronx Care Hospital has been an epicenter of the pandemic in New York City. The doctors, staff and support staff, including GAVS’ IT support engineers have experienced the devastating effect of this pandemic, up close and personal. GAVS’ technical team supported the ICUs and patient care units at the hospitals during the peak of pandemic.

“Every day we witness these heroic acts: one example out of many this week was our own Kishore going into our ICU to move a computer without full PPE (we have a PPE shortage). The GAVS technicians who come into our hospital every day are, like our doctors and healthcare workers, the true heroes of our time.”

– Ivan Durbak, CIO, BronxCare Health System

“GAVS Team was instrumental in assisting the deployment of digital contact less care solutions and remote patient monitoring solutions during the peak of COVID. Their ability to react in quick time really helped us save more lives than what we could have, with technology at the fore-front.”

– Dr. Sridhar Chilimuri, Chairman, Dept. of Medicine, BronxCare Health System

The alacrity with which our colleagues in India addressed the remote working situation and the initiative that they have demonstrated in maintaining business continuity for the clients in the US have inspired us at GAVS and  have reaffirmed our belief that we are on the way to create a purposeful company.  

The biggest learning from 2020, is that we need to be mindful of the fragility of life and truly make every day count. At GAVS, we are committed to use technology and service for the betterment of our clients and our stakeholders; and anchor this with our values of Respect, Integrity, Trust and Empathy.

The year was not without some positives. Thanks to some new client acquisitions and renewed contracts we have been able to significantly expand the GAVS family and have registered a 40% growth in revenue. 

We have formed Long 80, A GAVS & Premier, Inc. JV and have started reaching out to Healthcare providers in the US. We are reaching out to some of the largest hospitals in North America offering our AI-based Infrastructure Managed Services, Cybersecurity solutions, Prescriptive and Predictive Healthcare Solutions based on Analytics.

“Moving from a vendor-only model with GAVS to a collaborative model through Long 80 expands Premier’s current technology portfolio, enabling us to offer GAVS’ technology, digital transformation and data security services and solutions to US healthcare organizations. We are extremely excited about this opportunity and look forward to our new relationship with GAVS.”

– Leigh Anderson, President, Performance Services, Premier, Inc.

This year, we see the Premier team growing by an additional 120 persons to continue to support their initiative to reduce costs, improve efficiency, enhance productivity and faster time to market.

We aim to hit some milestones in our journey of enabling AI-driven Digital Transformation in the Healthcare space. We have constituted a team dedicated to achieving that.

We are contemplating on establishing the GAVS Healthcare Institute in partnership leading institutions in India and US to develop competency within GAVS in the latest technologies for the healthcare space.

GAVS is committed to being a company focused on AI, and newer technologies and promote GAVS’ AI led Technology Operations, Zero Incident Framework. In 2021, we will work on increasing our ZIF sites around the US and India.  

Based on inputs from our Customer Advisory Board, we at GAVS would like to build a competency around Client Relationship and empower our Client Success Managers to evolve as true partners of our Clients and support their aspirations and visions.  

GAVS is also making strong progress in the BFS sector and we would like to leverage our expertise in AI, Blockchain, Service Reliability and other digital technologies.

GAVS has the competency to support multiyear contracts and there will be a push to reach out to Sourcing Companies, Influencers and partners to garner these long-term predictable business.

We will continue to build competency and expertise around Innovation, and there are some initiatives that we will be putting in place to promote a Culture of Innovation and have measurable successes under Novelty of Innovation.

Our experience of 2020 has inspired us to once again remind ourselves that we should make GAVS an aspirational company, a firm that is purposeful and anchored with our values.

Center of Excellence – .Net

Posted on by Site Admin
Best Cyber Security Services Companies

“Maximizing the quality, efficiency, and reusability by providing innovative technical solutions, creating intellectual capital, inculcating best practices and processes to instill greater trust and provide incremental value to the Stakeholders.”

With the above mission,we have embarked on our journey to establish and strengthen the .NET Center of excellence (CoE).

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” – Steve Jobs

Expertise in this CoE is drawn from top talent across all customer engagements within GAVS. Team engagement is maintained at a very high level with various connects such as regular technology sessions, advanced trainings for CoE members from MS, support and guidance for becoming a MS MVP. Members also socialize new trending articles, tools, whitepapers and blogs within the CoE team and MS Teams channels setup for collaboration. All communications from MS Premier Communications sent to Gold Partners is also shared within the group. The high-level roadmap as planned for this group is laid out below.

Best DCaas Providers in USA
<!–td {border: 1px solid #ccc;}br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;}–>
Best DCaas Providers in USA<!–td {border: 1px solid #ccc;}br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;}–>
Best DCaas Providers in USA

The .NET CoEfocused on assistingourcustomers in every stage of theengagement right from on-boarding, planning, execution, technical implementation and finally all the way to launching and growing. Our prescriptive approach is to leverage industry-proven best practices, solutions, reusable components and include robust resources, training, and making a vibrant partner community.

With the above as the primary goal in mind the CoE group is currently engaged inor planning the following initiatives.

Technology Maturity Assessment

One of the main objectivesof this group is to provide constant feedback to all .NET stack project for improvement and improvisation. The goal for this initiative is to build the technology maturity index for all projects for the below parameters.

Best Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Software

Using those approaches within a short span of time we were able to make a significant impact for some of our engagements.

Client – Online Chain Store: Identified cheaper cloud hosting option for application UI.

Benefits: Huge cost and time savings.

Client – Health care sector: Provided alternate solution for DB migrations from DEV to various environments.

Benefits: Huge cost savings due to licensing annually.

Competency Building

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.” – Henry Ford

Continuous learning and upskilling are the new norms in today’s fast changing technology landscape. This initiative is focused on providing learning and upskilling support to all technology teams in GAVS. Identifying code mentors, supporting team members to become full stack developers are some of the activities planned under this initiative.  Working along with the Learning & Development team,the .NET CoE isformulating different training tracks to upskill the team members and provide support for external assessments and MS certifications.

Solution Accelerators

“Good, better, best. Never let it rest. ‘Till your good is better and your better is best.” – St. Jerome

The primary determinants of CoE effectiveness are involvement in solutions and accelerators and in maintaining standard practices of the relevant technologies across customer engagements across the organization.

As part of this initiative we are focusing on building project templates, DevOps pipelines and automated testing templates for different technology stacks for both Serverless and Server Hosted scenarios. We also are planning similar activities for the Desktop/Mobile Stack with the Multi-Platform App UI (MAUI) framework which is planned to be released for Preview in Q4 2020.

Blockchain Solution and Services

Additionally, we are also adoptingless-code, no-code development platforms for accelerated development cycles for specific use-cases.

As we progress on our journey to strengthen the .NET CoE, we want to act as acatalyst in rapid and early adoption of new technology solutions and work as trusted partners with all our customer and stakeholders.

If you have any questions about the CoE, you may reach out to them at COE_DOTNET@gavstech.com

CoE Team Members

  • Bismillakhan Mohammed
  • Gokul Bose
  • Kirubakaran Girijanandan
  • Neeraj Kumar
  • Prasad D
  • Ramakrishnan S
  • SaphalMalol
  • Saravanan Swaminathan
  • SenthilkumarKamayaswami
  • Sethuraman Varadhan
  • Srinivasan Radhakrishnan
  • Thaufeeq Ahmed
  • Thomas T
  • Vijay Mahalingam

Center of Excellence – Server

Posted on by Site Admin

Our Server CoE is a team of highly skilled individuals and experts in various server technologies who promote collaboration, standardization and best practices to drive business or customer-valued results.

The CoE is focused on providing expert level support in technologies like Windows / Linux Servers, Exchange / O365 Messaging solution, Virtualization with VMWare / Hyper-V / Citrix / Linux, Patch & Compliance Management, Application Availability & Performance Monitoring and Backup / Recovery solutions, etc.

The Server CoE also focuses on in-depth assessment of customer end server infrastructure components to study and analyze the existing design implementations, configurations, and operations to identify strengths and weaknesses to implement technical and economical improvements to businesses, wherever applicable, and perform upgrades, migrations and transformations as necessary.

IT Automation with AI

A wide range of server technologies comprise the Server CoE and not every business or customer can practically leverage all of them. And in the same way, not all the members can practically become an SME in all the server technologies.

Service Offerings

AI Devops Automation Service Tools

Current & Upcoming Engagements

A farm credit bank of US – Server Assessment – In Progress – July 2020

  • MS Active Directory Assessment
    • MS Exchange Assessment
    • VMWare Assessment
    • MS SCCM Assessment
    • MS SCOM Assessment
    • Storage
    • Backup Assessment

A global professional services firm – Hybrid Exchange 2016 Migration – July/August 2020

  • SOW Sign Off – Completed
    • Background verification process for 2 Technical Resources – Completed
    • Migration Environment Setup – In Progress
    • Assessment / Pre-requisites Review – Next Steps
    • Migration Test Phase – July 2020
    • Production Migration – July-August 2020

A Multinational Dairy Company – Active Directory & Exchange Server Migration / July – August 2020

  • Microsoft Active Directory Server Assessment
    • Microsoft Exchange Server Assessment
    • Migration of Active Directory from Windows Server 2008 R2 to Windows Server 2016.
    • Migration of Exchange from Exchange Server 2016 to Exchange Server 2019.

A Wellness Services Agency – Resolve Issues with Exchange Database / DDL – July – August 2020

  • Customer Call / Technical Solution / SOW – Completed
    • SOW Sign Off – In Progress by July 2020
    • Assessment / Migration – Next Steps

A Leading FMCG company of India – Digital Transformation to O365 – July – August 2020

  • Zimbra Mail to O365 Migration
    • Licensing Model Finalization – In Progress
    • Migration Plan & Execution – Next Steps

A Leading FMCG company of India – DNS Migration between Service Providers – July 2020

  • 30+ Domains are registered with Net4India
    • Availability & Support Issues with current provider
    • Assess current domain lists and Migrate to new Provider

A Diverse Hardware Group – Azure Cloud Integration & Support – July/August 2020

  • SOW – in Progress

Road Map

AIOps Artificial Intelligence for IT Operations

Contribution to Organization’s Growth

The Server CoE’s contribution is not limited to one activity with one customer at a time, but involved with multiple simultaneous activities in different server technologies in different customer requirements. Server CoE contributions:

  • Participating in RFPs / Proposals by providing technical solutions to prospects’ requirements
  • Participating in full time Infrastructure Assessment projects for various customers
  • Participating in full time Implementations & Migration projects for different customers
  • Providing Standard Operating Procedures, templates & best practice recommendations in various server technologies
  • Provide internal training to individuals to upskill and strengthen the team
  • Responding to requests and providing solutions to issues faced in various customer engagements

The members of our CoE are dedicated to in carrying out all CoE related activities in addition to their day to day activities in their assigned projects without any impact. We aim to contribute to the organization in terms of technological capability establishment and financial growth with new business opportunities.

If you have any questions about the CoE, you may reach out to them at COE_SERVER@gavstech.com

CoE Team Members

  • Balamurugan Rajamanickam
  • Dilipkumar Dhanasekaran
  • Dinesh Kumar
  • Karthick Mani
  • Karthickmanikandan G
  • Manoj Akula
  • Marimuthupandi Kalimuthu
  • Ramkumar Janakiraman
  • Sabari Nivas
  • Sathishkumar Jayaraman
  • Selvaganesh Kothandan
  • Sivakumar Duraisamy
  • Lakshmi Srikanth

Is the Future of White-Collared Workforce only Digital?

Posted on by Site Admin

Hariharan Madhavan

COVID-19 taught all white-collared workers and their employers one thing for sure – “It is possible to work from home”. With the current advancements in technology – using a mobile app-based contact center solutions, using collaboration platforms to edit content together, hosting tech troubleshooting bridges where multiple engineers solve an issue, video conferencing meetings allowing people to see each other, from where work is delivered does not matter anymore.

Rpa in Infrastructure Management

Wearing what feels comfortable, sitting comfortably, eating homemade food, personalizing your room, life was never better balanced between work and personal life better than now. With nobody to micromanage, the only way to measure a worker is through outcomes. Attendance swipes are a thing of the past. People managers who have no idea of the work done by their team members will become redundant starting2020.
New digital companies will take over like a storm to embrace this opportunity, just like AGILE took over like a religion to manage software development projects.

Existing digital workforce companies are already providing opportunities for companies to hire talent who can work remotely on a need basis from around the world and save potential hiring costs and free from commitments. Just like Uber and Lyft transformed the taxi business, we could see a wave of disruption transforming and killing the traditional brick and mortar IT behemoths to more agile and digital workforce capabilities hiring top talent on the click of a mobile app, and being able to get talent requirements fulfilled in minutes instead of having to wait for weeks or months to get somebody to join. This will be like the DevOps of Hiring for managers who have new projects and budgets looking for people to get things done.

Every other aspect of the business has changed, reducing time to market, and hiring talent is the only area still very traditional and inefficient. It’s not too late for somebody to realize and use this uncertain economic environment as a cradle of opportunity to offer enterprises as a solution.

The next question that comes up is if the borders are removed, how do you secure and still be compliant with your compliance norms. This is completely dependent on the level of sensitivity of data to which an employee/contractor has access. From using privacy screens in the laptops to using technology like VDI, SaaS-based EDR, NGAV, unified agents, CASB’s, you have literally every control that you can think of on-premise that you can enforce in a laptop used by an employee.

When companies hire you in the future, they will ship you an asset to your home location and expect you to use that asset for work. When you have moved out, you will be sent return shipping on which you can put the asset and send it back.

Another main setback that prevented a revolution is that IT companies had to pay for bench talent to provide for the demand. This will also be disrupted by new entrants. New disruptors will be willing to share up to 70% of the revenue earned by somebody back to them, but if there is a loss of billable revenue, the same will be immediately passed on to the concerned employee. These measures will weed out people who are just not meant for the IT workforce that demands constant skill up-gradation, essentially leaving IT to only the high potential workers who are dynamic.

About the Author –

Hariharan is the global head of Cybersecurity at GAVS. He is responsible for strategic and tactical leadership around emerging technologies such as cloud transformation, cloud-native microservices development, software-defined networking, cloud security, DevOps Security, Security and Automation, Security & AI.

VDI for Remote Working

Posted on by Site Admin
aiops platform monitoring tools

Padmapriya Sridhar

The modern workforce is constantly evolving. Flexible work hours, remote working, anytime, anywhere access to corporate data, applications & resources from any device, are fast becoming baseline employee expectations. Organizations are also adapting and exploring better ways to work and collaborate, to boost employee productivity. While providing secure employee mobility is one goal, ensuring 24*7 support for always-on businesses, business continuity with minimal disruption in the event of natural calamities, or pandemics like Covid-19, are other drivers that are escalating the need for secure remote access for employees. 

While providing employees with laptops or mobile devices is one option to enable remote working, it can incur heavy capital expenditure and more importantly, it can quickly spiral into a management and security nightmare for the IT team. With thousands of endpoint devices, disparate applications and data, and sophistication of cyber attacks, supporting secure and compliant workplace mobility can become overwhelming, if even effectively doable. With this said, let’s look at Desktop Virtualization as a viable alternative.

Desktop Virtualization

Desktop Virtualization is a technology that completely untethers a physical device from the desktop environment. Desktop components such as the hardware, operating system, applications, data, and user persona are moved into the data center, where they are centrally managed as individual components. When a user accesses his desktop from a remote device through the network, a dynamically assembled set of these components is presented to the user as a personalized view of his desktop, called a virtual desktop. The decoupling of the user’s device from his desktop environment enables desktop access from any of his computing devices.  

Benefits of Desktop Virtualization

Simplified IT Management: Centrally located & managed computing and data environment simplifies IT management, and enables tighter control over endpoint devices, easier enforcement of security and regulatory compliance, and hence a lesser number of IT incidents. This process efficiency reduces operational overheads and drastically reduces costs.

Cost-Effective: Desktop Virtualization shifts organizational expenditure from CapEx to OpEx. When virtual desktops are hosted in the cloud as in Desktop as a Service (DaaS), costs are based on usage, making it very cost-effective.

Enhanced Employee Productivity: Employee mobility through secure access to the desktop, applications, and other corporate resources anytime & anywhere, fuels productivity.

Faster Disaster Recovery: This is achievable with minimal downtime since recovery does not involve rebuilding the physical infrastructure environment.

Rapidly Deployable and Highly Scalable: Virtual Desktops are provisioned based on role-specific preconfigured templates, and so can be spun up quickly depending on the demand curve. They can also be destroyed just as fast when not required, saving a lot of time, effort, and costs in anticipatory provisioning. Similarly, applications can also be quickly served, since they are centrally installed and controlled, lending agility to IT operations.

The abstraction and isolation of the desktop computing layers open new possibilities of workspace delivery. Different desktop virtualization technologies address different layers of the computing environment. Some of them over the years have been:

Application Virtualization, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), Service-Based Computing (SBC), Client-Hosted Virtual Desktops (CHVDs), User Personalization Management (UPM), Workspace Aggregators, Remote Desktop Services (RDS) and many more. Desktop as a Service (DaaS) is a cloud-based service offering powered by one or more of these technologies.

VDI & DaaS have had the most innovation in recent times. VDI is a preferred choice since it remotely delivers the image of the desktop environment that users are comfortable with. VDI provides the highest levels of abstraction & security, among the technologies. In VDI, each user gets a dedicated thick client user environment run as a virtual machine (VM), and hosted on a server in the data center. The user works on the desktop image that is sent over the network and can then interact with the files, applications, and the OS, as he would in a physical desktop. The flip side to VDI is that the implementation and management need specialized technical expertise, so it would help to use a VDI vendor who offers end-to-end service as well.

In DaaS, the virtual machines are hosted on the cloud, and so it automatically comes with all the cloud computing benefits like flexibility, faster deployment, scalability, and affordable cost structure due to usage-based pricing, & the shift towards operating expenses.   

GAVS’ VDI Solution

zDesk, is our end-to-end integrated solution for a fully functional VDI. zDesk combines the benefits of VDI and Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) and can be hosted either on-premise or on the cloud. The simplicity of the single-vendor solution enabled by hyper-converged and software-defined infrastructure technologies defies the rapid deployability, scalability and robust security of the virtual desktops. For more information on our VDI solution, please reach out to us at inquiry@gavstech.com.

Virtual desktops on a meteoric rise

Posted on by Site Admin

Bindu Vijayan

For its versatility in supporting mobile workforces, to security, to energy efficiency, virtual desktops have been on a meteoric rise in recent times. The technology brings benefits that makes it near mandatory, given the way businesses are having to function with the raging pandemic gripping the world.

Wikipedia defines VDI as “Desktop virtualization is a software technology that separates the desktop environment and associated application software from the physical client device that is used to access it….In this mode, all the components of the desktop are virtualized, which allows for a highly flexible and much more secure desktop delivery model.”

Financial impact – With VDI, you have the freedom to reallocate huge CAPEX IT investments into other areas according to your business demands. The technology helps you save on those high cost capital expenditures like expensive servers. It is a viable and sound proposition as hardware issues and related problems are dealt with on the main server vs several individual machines. It takes time to provision new desktops and laptops, and VDI takes the headache out with simplified management. The money invested in server hardware becomes an onetime cost as against investing in several desktops.  It also reduces the admin and support costs.  There are no expensive installations in spite of remote working and the maintenance / software upgrades and so on that usually takes up lots of time when done on several individual machines can now be brought down to a minimum with it being centralized. It helps save manhours. With VDI using the storage capability and computing power of the data center, individual devices require less RAM and less storage space, and that points towards less expensive machines with high performance.  It helps to budget hardware investments more appropriately and reallocate to other areas.

Security – Today, security has become a serious concern for businesses.  With VDI, tracking external devices becomes much more manageable. Using a central database with centralised storage makes it more secure. No individual device holds / stores data and thus the company data is more secure and under central supervision. You don’t risk having files in various devices, and there is the added advantage of not losing data if anything happens to individual devices or desktops.  Right from individual files to the various applications that are installed, it is easier to manage them centrally and thus avoid all the time engineers usually take to locate individual problems. This sort of centralized troubleshooting helps maintain lean IT operations.

With centralizing the updating process for an organization with different people using different types of devices, right from desktops to laptops to tabs and high tech phones, the chances are that they are going to be on different operating systems, and VDI centralizes the process. And given the unprecedented scenario we are in, disaster recovery is crucial.  When data is stored centrally, it can be accessed anywhere with minimal downtime.

Energy efficient – VDI also comes with the advantage of being energy efficient.  It uses much less electricity than individual desktop computers.  Becoming energy efficient is not something that is aspirational any longer – businesses commit to reducing their carbon footprints to do their bit to saving our planet.

To sum up, the efficiency and the versatility of VDI makes it possible for employees to work from anywhere subject to internet connectivity, regardless of their location, type of device, situation, time of the day, etc.  Employees are happier when they feel they have the flexibility to work anywhere, anytime, a fact that is especially true with the millennial workforce. It is the current day need and the answer to businesses with most of the world having to work from home to battle the pandemic.  It means employees have the flexibility to work from anywhere without compromising security, with complete control over budgets as there is no need for purchasing additional devices.  It increases productivity, with the IT department taking care of the deploying applications etc., while the users are left relatively free to manage and focus on their work. Plus all the heavy lifting that is usually associated with computing gets done by the remote servers where data and programs are centralized, which has applications perform with the speed and efficiency.  This reduced lag time coupled with increased computing powers sums up to huge productivity gains.

Are you ready for the switch to virtual desktops?

GAVS’ zDesk will do the job for you, request for a demo, write to inquiry@gavstech.com

zDesk combines the benefits of VDI and Desktop as a Service (DaaS), and can be hosted either on-premise or on the cloud service of your choice. The zDesk stack is a complete, holistic solution that sits on top of brownfield” customer infrastructure. The zDesk Enterprise Service Bus collects and distributes logs, security threats, user profiles, guests, hardware inventory and KPIs. zDesk provides storage optimization, including compression and deduplication, which reduces storage costs and upkeep. Persistent storage is in the form of local disks and replicated databases. Additional services such as brokering and monitoring, help ease the process of delivering the desktop to the end-user, and reduce incidents.

Key benefits you get from zDesk;

  • Save on 90% of utility bills
  • 40% on desktop investment
  • 40% on software licensing costs
  • 80% of support costs
  • Achieve 0% data loss
  • 90% faster deployment
  • 100% secured endpoints
  • Reduce 70% of IT incidents

Keep Calm and Be a Great Leader in a Time of Pandemic

Posted on by Site Admin

Katy Sherman

We live in scary times. While governments call for social distancing, it becomes more important than ever to stay connected as a community. For many of us the measures around COVID-19 mean we work from home and manage remote teams. While virtual teams are not unusual, today’s situation brings its own challenges. Today it is not only about being remote, it’s about facing fears. We fear for our jobs, our health, our families and friends.

How do we help each other stay productive and connected while we are worried and isolated?

This is what every leader should do to support their teams and help them get through the difficult times:

1) Make sure everybody has what they need to work remotely. Technology goes a long way in creating inclusive collaborative environment. Ask frequently, be prepared to act to resolve issues. Know how to navigate the company to obtain resources through management, HR, and Helpdesk.

2) Mentor team members on time management, especially people who are not used to work from home. Share expectations and establish norms of how to be available throughout the day, and when to go offline. While some people struggle with home environment being too distracting, others find it difficult to disengage at the end of the day and would stay at their desks until late. Give guidance based on the unique needs of each individual.

3) Get into a habit of checking in on people without agenda – have a coffee break together, chat about things not related to work, allow to unwind. Keep your finger on the pulse! Your team members can experience anxiety, be dealing with personal issues or worried about their communities. Some will need time off, or more flexibility than usual to provide child care, buy groceries during sporadic shortages, or take care of family members.

4) Simulate reality through video chats. Being on camera helps us stay focused, engaged in the conversation, as well as look and feel professionally. It also allows to read the non-verbals and better understand the vibe of the conversation. Turn your video on every time you’re in a meeting, this will encourage others to do the same.

5) Take care about yourself! Wash hands, sleep, exercise, go for a walk, drink water. Keep calm. Don’t spread frustration and panic. Remember, people are looking up to you, so lead by example.

I am sure we will get through this as a community. Lead the way and help others!

Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider

About the Author:

Katy is passionate about:

•Leadership and vision • Innovation, technical excellence and highest quality standards • Agility achieved through teamwork, Agile, Scrum, Kanban, TDD, CI/CD, DevOps and automation • Breaking silos and promoting collaboration of Development, Testing and Operations under cross-functional umbrella of Software Engineering • Diversity of personalities, experiences and opinions.

Things Katy does to spread the word:

•Speak at Technology conferences (including as an invited and key-note speaker) • Blog and participate in group discussions

•Collaborate with schools, universities and clubs • Empower girls and women, help them learn about Technology and become engineers