Digital Workspace

Review: Omnissa Horizon Secures and Improves Work From Anywhere

Built for hybrid workforces, the platform balances security with positive user experiences.

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John Breeden II is an award-winning reviewer and public speaker with 20 years of experience covering technology.

The COVID-19 pandemic permanently reshaped the workplace, accelerating the shift toward hybrid work and distributed teams. But for many organizations, legacy virtual desktop infrastructure solutions struggled to keep up, weighed down by complexity, performance issues and security gaps.

The Omnissa Horizon platform steps in where many virtual desktop tools fail, providing a secure, multicloud VDI platform built to deliver reliable access for managers and support staff alike, while also streamlining and improving the user experience. In testing, the platform proved ready to help organizations modernize without adding extra complexity to their environments.

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Omnissa Horizon Optimizes the User Experience

I evaluated Omnissa Horizon on a variety of operating systems, including Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS, and with different hardware platforms, including desktops, tablets and a thin client. One of the most impressive things about working with virtual desktops managed through the platform was that the user experience was nearly identical throughout. A virtual desktop hosted on a powerful workstation performed just as well on a thin client with a metered connection and a tablet using a wireless signal.

The platform uses a technology called Blast Extreme to optimize the user experience regardless of bandwidth constraints. Even graphically intensive environments look good and work well on platforms, such as tablets, that were not really designed to support them.

On the back end, other optimizations have been created to streamline the management of the entire VDI. One example is the instant clone feature, which allows the capture of approved desktop images. When someone is hired, they can be given a fully configured desktop environment tailored to their new role in just a couple of clicks.

Omnissa Horizon Layers Security Throughout

Of course, security is always critical, and Omnissa Horizon includes strong protection for data, users and infrastructure; security is layered throughout the VDI, eliminating weak points for attackers to exploit.

For example, the health of devices and other endpoints driving virtual desktops is constantly monitored. If a problem or security issue is detected, that device can be locked until the problem is fixed.

Deeper inside the network, critical information such as customer data can be protected and stored in secure data centers or clouds; user devices are allowed to view the data only when needed, while the actual record remains fully protected.

Employees need fast, reliable access to applications and customer data from anywhere, and they need it without compromising security or compliance. Omnissa Horizon’s multicloud VDI platform helps IT teams deliver that access while keeping sensitive information in the data center or cloud, not on endpoint devices. The platform’s security layers reduce the risk of breaches, and its instant clone and app-on-demand capabilities minimize downtime, ensuring that technology fully supports — not slows — the delivery of patient care.

SPECIFICATIONS

PRODUCT TYPE: Cloud-based VDI and application delivery platform
DEPLOYMENT: SaaS, with support for on-premises, hybrid and multicloud environments
DEVICE TYPES: Windows, macOS, Linux, ChromeOS and thin/zero clients, with optimized support for graphic-intensive and high-latency environments
FEATURES: Centralized provisioning and management of virtual desktops and applications, secure remote access, unified multicloud management and real-time performance monitoring

Streamlining Administrator Tasks With Omnissa Horizon

While the most visible features of the Omnissa Horizon platform involve users, there are many that were designed to assist administrators who manage very complex environments, plus a few options that can be added to the platform.

Enterprise environments are always complicated, with a lot of equipment, staff roles and security levels. Providing a VDI to hundreds or thousands of employees is never easy, but the Omnissa Horizon platform does a great job of making critical tasks as streamlined as possible.

Instant clones of typical desktop configurations can help with full deployments to new employees, but administrators are not locked into a one-size-fits-all setup. To help with virtual desktop customization, the Omnissa Horizon platform also offers applications on demand.

With this capability, applications and their features are “captured” by the platform. This allows them to be served up to users as they are needed. It also allows users to quickly access an approved application, even if it was not a part of their original virtual desktop configuration.

Besides simplifying management, having apps run on demand enables organizations to reduce support costs, especially if the apps are paid for by the seat. Fewer active apps mean lower costs. In testing, the app-on-demand feature did not significantly slow down activation of the app on a client device or make it harder for people to start using it.

The fact that the VDI can be controlled across an entire healthcare environment — including multiple device types, in-person and remote workers, and even multiple locations — is invaluable for simplifying a complex environment. Admins can set up security policies and apply them universally across an entire infrastructure. Or they can set up different policies for different users and groups. In every case, devices and users must follow all applied policies to access a protected network because enforcement is also a part of the Omnissa Horizon package.

Finally, the platform features a modular design. While Horizon has everything needed to serve up and protect an entire VDI, optional tools are available. Those additional modules can be integrated quickly into the main platform to provide capabilities such as vulnerability management, data loss prevention and patch management, should those be needed.