The inherent security of VDI

With a properly designed VDI solution, all of the sensitive data resides in a secured data center versus living on hard drives in devices such as laptops and desktops. While it is possible to copy data within the vDesktop to, for example, a USB thumb drive plugged into the end device, it is also possible to prevent USB redirection of such devices.

In secure VDI implementations, the only data that is typically transmitted is the visual and audio stream to deliver the desktop experience to the end device. This means that if an end user is using Microsoft Word to manipulate a document while connected to their vDesktop, the document does not reside on his or her end device (for example, a laptop). Instead, it completely resides within the vDesktop running, ideally, within the data center. The visual representation of the desktop, including the visual display of Microsoft Word and the document are streamed down to the end device via the secured PCoIP protocol.

In a...