Reimagine the Employee Experience in Hybrid Work Environments
Read the Report View the Infographic Test MethodologyWed, 29 Nov 2023 04:46:00 -0000
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Prowess Consulting identified how an integrated workforce solution like VMware® Anywhere Workspace with Dell™ PowerEdge™ servers can help organizations succeed with hybrid work environments.
Executive Summary
Hybrid work is here to stay. 64% of executives are convinced that flexible work options motivate employees, and more than 70% of employees are working from home at least 2–3 days per week.[1] But hybrid work environments create a unique set of challenges for organizations. As employees use more devices, access more applications, and work from more locations, IT teams are scrambling to support them. Some organizations try to get by on legacy technologies and point solutions. However, traditional IT environments and management solutions are not designed to support a distributed workforce. Using traditional tools can lead to operational complexity, fragmented security, and poor user experiences.
Prowess Consulting evaluated VMware® Anywhere Workspace running on Dell™ PowerEdge™ servers as a potential solution for managing hybrid work environments. Anywhere Workspace integrates modern tools into a single platform to deliver IT services like onboarding employees, managing remote devices and virtual desktops, and monitoring for security threats. After reviewing components including VMware Workspace ONE®, VMware® Secure Access Server Edge (SASE), and VMware® Carbon Black, we determined that organizations that deploy the Anywhere Workspace platform can enhance user experiences and achieve consistent, secure performance across locations and devices for hybrid workers. For employers embracing hybrid work environments for their employees, this solution could be a significant win.
Hybrid Work Environments
Organizations are supporting hybrid work environments as executives conclude that flexible work options keep employees motivated.1 In a hybrid work environment, some employees might work remotely, others might work on-premises, and others might split their time between the office and other locations, such as home or coffee shops. But designing and managing hybrid work environments is not easy.
Challenges of Hybrid Work Environments
Today’s executives face a wide variety of challenges as the concept of the workplace evolves from being a physical space to a digital space. Organizations must maximize employee engagement and productivity when employees work from almost anywhere. To support digital workspaces, IT teams must support an increasing number of device types of applications across multiple clouds and different networks. Processes are often manual, and organizations might be constrained by legacy on-premises computing systems. Multiple IT management tools are often needed to run different platforms and operating systems, and each needs specific skill sets and resources. Additionally, an increased number of endpoints expands the attack surface and increases security risks. To address these challenges, organizations need an integrated workforce solution that unifies IT management into a single platform.
The Platform Advantage
Prowess Consulting observed that Anywhere Workspace can be used to replace multiple IT tools, reducing the number of IT skill sets and resources needed. In our analysis, we noted that Anywhere Workspace consists of three components, as shown in Figure 1: VMware Workspace ONE, VMware SASE, and VMware Carbon Black.
VMware Workspace ONE®
We started our evaluation by reviewing VMware Workspace ONE. Gartner has cited Workspace ONE as a leader in the unified endpoint management (UEM) category for the last five years.[2] In our analysis, we identified three key benefits of Workspace ONE UEM:
1. Automated onboarding. New employee devices can register over the air during the initial power-up. Admins can easily set up and customize an imageless configuration of work profiles such as emails, VPNs, and Wi-Fi.
Employees are 2.6x as likely to be satisfied with their employer if onboarding is exceptional.[3] | 61% of organizations report that they wrestle with onboarding.[4] |
2. Management across endpoints. Workspace ONE UEM manages and secures devices and apps by taking advantage of the native mobile device management (MDM) capabilities of iOS® and Android™ devices and mobile-cloud management efficiencies of Windows®, Apple® macOS®, and Google Chrome™ devices.
3. Integrated single-sign-on (SSO). Integrated SSO eliminates multiple logins for better security, speed, and ease of use.
Virtual Apps and Desktops
VMware Workspace ONE integrates UEM technology with virtual application delivery through VMware Horizon®. We identified the following key benefits:
- Automatic software installation. IT teams can create an automated workflow for installing software, applications, files, scripts, and commands, which can save time and reduce expenses.
- Broad support. Workspace ONE makes use of VMware Horizon, a virtualization software product, to deliver desktops and apps on Windows, macOS, Linux®, iOS, Chrome, and Android endpoints.
- Secure virtual apps. IT teams can secure sensitive and confidential information.
Measuring VM Density with VMware Horizon®
To better evaluate Workspace ONE, we measured the virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) density created using Workspace ONE with VMware Horizon. VMware Horizon enables IT departments to run remote desktops and applications in the data center and deliver these desktops and applications to employees. VDI density refers to the number of virtual desktops that can be efficiently and effectively hosted on a single cluster of servers in a VDI environment. The concept of VDI density is important for several reasons:
- Resource utilization: Efficient VDI density maximizes the use of hardware resources and can lead to improved performance.
- Cost efficiency: Increased VDI density reduces the number of physical servers required, which can lead to cost savings.
- Simplified management: With higher VDI density, the administrative overhead associated with server management, updates, and maintenance can be reduced.
[1] EY. “Workplace of the Future Index 2.0.” November 2022.
[2] VMware. “VMware Named a Leader in the 2022 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Unified Endpoint Management for Fifth Year in a Row.” August 2022.
[3] Gallup. “The Relationship Between Engagement at Work and Organizational Outcomes.” October 2020.
[4] Tolly. “VMware Work From Home Test Report by Tolly.” Commissioned by VMware. January 2021.
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- Higher performance for intensive ML applications – Dell PowerEdge R760 servers support up to 24 x 2.5” NVM Express (NVMe) drives with an NVMe backplane. NVMe drives enable VMware vSAN, which runs under VMware Tanzu, to meet the high-performance requirements of ML workloads, in terms of both throughput and latency metrics.
- Storage architecture – vSAN’s Original Storage Architecture (OSA) is a legacy 2-tier model using high throughput storage drives for a caching tier, and a capacity tier composed of high-capacity drives. In contrast, the Express Storage Architecture (ESA) is an alternative design introduced in vSAN 8.0 that features a single-tier model designed to take full advantage of modern NVMe drives.
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Recommended configurations
Worker Nodes (minimum four nodes required, up to 64 nodes per cluster)
Table 1. PowerEdge R760-based, up to 16 NVMe drives, 2RU
Feature | Description | |
Platform | Dell R760 supporting 16x 2.5” drives with NVMe backplane - direct connection | |
CPU | Base configuration: 2x Xeon Gold 6448Y (32c @ 2.1GHz), or Plus configuration: 2x Xeon Gold 8468 (48c @ 2.1GHz) | |
vSAN Storage Architecture | OSA | ESA |
DRAM | 256GB (16x 16GB DDR5-4800) | 512GB (16x 32GB DDR5-4800) |
Boot device | Dell BOSS-N1 with 2x 480GB M.2 NVMe SSD (RAID1) | |
vSAN Cache Tier [1] | 2x 1.92TB Solidigm D7-P5520 SSD (PCIe Gen4, Read-Intensive) | N/A |
vSAN Capacity Tier1 | 6x 1.92TB Solidigm D7-P5620 SSD (PCIe Gen4, Mixed Use) | |
Object storage1 | 4x (up to 10x) 1.92TB, 3.84TB or 7.68TB Solidigm D7-P5520 SSD (PCIe Gen4, Read-Intensive) | |
NIC[2] | Intel E810-XXV for OCP3 (dual-port 25Gb), or Intel E810-CQDA2 PCIe add-on card (dual-port 100Gb) | |
Additional NIC[3] | Intel E810-XXV for OCP3 (dual-port 25Gb), or Intel E810-CQDA2 PCIe add-on card (dual-port 100Gb) |
Optional – Dedicated storage nodes
Table 2. PowerEdge R660-based, up to 10 NVMe drives or 12 SAS drives, 1RU
Feature | Description | |
Node type | High performance | High capacity |
Platform | Dell R660 supporting 10x 2.5” drives with NVMe backplane | Dell R760 supporting 12x 3.5” drives with SAS/SATA backplane |
CPU | 2x Xeon Gold 6442Y (24c @ 2.6GHz) | 2x Xeon Gold 6426Y (16c @ 2.5GHz) |
DRAM | 128GB (16x 8GB DDR5-4800) | |
Storage controller | None | HBA355e adapter |
Boot device | Dell BOSS-N1 with 2x 480GB M.2 NVMe SSD (RAID1) | |
Object storage1 | up to 10x 1.92TB / 3.84TB / 7.68TB Solidigm D7-P5520 SSD (PCIe Gen4, Read-Intensive) | up to 12x 8TB/16TB/22TB 3.5in 12Gbps SAS HDD 7.2k RPM |
NIC2 | Intel E810-CQDA2 PCIe add-on card (dual-port 100Gb) | Intel E810-XXV for OCP3 (dual-port 25Gb) |
Learn more
Deploy ML models quickly with cnvrg.io and VMware Tanzu. Contact your Dell or Intel account team for a customized quote, at 1-877-289-3355.
[1] Number of drives and capacity for MinIO object storage depends on the dataset size and performance requirements.
[2] 100Gbps NICs recommended for higher throughput.
[3] Optional – required only if dedicated storage network for external storage system is necessary.