By Sam | July 6, 2013

Hosted Virtual Desktop Sync Feature: Pros and Cons

So you use the Hosted Virtual Desktop while on the move and wonder why some cloud providers don’t have a sync feature? This post is for you. 

The Hosted Virtual Desktop Sync feature I refer to is something similar to how DropBox works. Basically the idea is that your files (or some small portion of them) from the hosted virtual desktop are synced to your local machine so that you can access them if you find yourself without internet access. While the places in the world that you can’t get internet theses days are few and far between, it still does happen occasionally.

The Pro

There is basically one Pro in this argument. It is in support of the User’s convenience, and is fairly obvious. The largest pro is that you can access your hosted virtual desktop files without internet connection. It is strictly a convenience thing because if you knew you were going to be on a plane with no WiFi for a few hours, you could pull down which documents you wanted to work on while flying. People generally don’t suddenly find themselves flying, and pulling down a couple documents is pretty easy and quick.

The Cons

There are far more Cons than Pros to this feature. Something that sounds so good and simple actually causes a few quandaries, but mostly for your IT Administrator.

1. Data Compromise.

Yep. You’ve done it. You have put your data out there in the world. This is our CIO’s consistent number 1 reason why we don’t provide a local sync feature. If you sync data to your local machine and loose it or it gets stolen, well now your data is in the hands of who ever finds it or stole it. Also, assuming you were working on your data locally and had not synced yet, you will have also lost work. Say 6 hours of work you did on the airplane. You have just defeated the entire purpose of storing your data in the cloud….Integrity and Security.

2. Applications.

We provide all of your office applications to you in the cloud on your Hosted Virtual Desktop. How are you going to access those applications outside of the cloud? Even if we are only talking about Microsoft Office, should your company have to buy two licenses? One for you local machine and one for your Hosted Virtual Desktop? (They are more than welcome too, but we’ll be the first to say that it isn’t very efficient.) What about any custom applications that we host? You would need a higher quality internet connection to VPN into that server than you would to login to the Hosted Virtual Desktop.

It is not a complicated argument in either directions, and there isn’t really a right answer. Depending on the sensitivity of your data you may not care if your travelling employees have a feature that syncs data to their local machine. It is actually something we have simmering on the back burner, but aren’t pushing at full steam because while Clients often ask about it, none have required it.

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