cloud – PDF Blog – Topics from the makers of Win2PDF

As a follow up to our previous posting, we thought we’d link to some additional resources on Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). In particular, how are VDI solutions being managed today, and where is this technology going in the future? And how can you use Win2PDF with VDI to expand PDF functionality across more platforms and devices?

VDI in the Cloud (image from Virtual Bridges)

There are a couple of different ways of managing a Virtual VDI implementation – either hosting the infrastructure components in-house or hosting them in the cloud. We won’t go into all of the details in this post, but we did think it useful to share some resource links to the major vendors in this area.

The most common way VDI management is handled today is to have each enterprise host both the hardware and software in a centralized location. This can be pricey (since the company needs to buy all the hardware and software components), complex, and difficult to manage from a load-balancing and performance perspective. Organizations utilizing this type of approach probably use a solution from one of the major players in the VDI software space and you can find more information about each following the links listed below:

The second, newer way VDI solutions are managed are by utilizing a cloud-based service. In addition to the providers listed above, a relatively new entrant into this space is Amazon.com, with their Amazon WorkSpaces product. The following video provides a good overview of how their cloud hosted VDI solution differs from the traditional in-house solution.

Amazon’s hosting infrastructure could be a game changer in the way enterprises deploy VDI. It allows organizations an easy way to support Windows apps on non-Windows devices, such as Android or iPad tablets. And, as user mobility becomes increasingly common, the ability to support Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) technologies will only become more important. Providing secure application access on any device is the ultimate goal.

Whether enterprises move their VDI management to the cloud in serious numbers still remains to be seen, but it is an interesting option for companies that want to get started without the upfront cost and complexity. Our Win2PDF products support both the tradition in-house VDI solutions and the new Amazon WorkSpaces product. It’s a great way to provide the ability to generate PDF files to any BYOD user.

Last week we discussed going paperless by creating PDFs and storing them in the cloud, and today we’d like to continue that theme by looking at some of these services in general, and how the process can be automated.

The good news is that there are MANY cloud storage services that you can use to accomplish this type of cloud storage with various levels of free starter accounts. You just set up an account with the particular service that’s best for you, designate a folder to ‘sync’ on your PC, and then just copy or save PDF files to this folder. Here are some of the major services we’ve tried:

How do you use these services to back up PDF files? Easy. Once you’ve selected and installed your cloud storage service, just use Win2PDF to save your files to your PC’s designated Sync directory.

Cloud Storage Folders in Explorer — Cloud Storage Sync Folders in Explorer

And if you want to automate this even further with Win2PDF, our latest Win2PDF 7.5 release has an automatic naming/saving feature. If you enable this feature, you can automatically have all of your files saved to the folder without any prompting.

So, which service is best? It really depends. Each service has a free option with a starter amount of storage. We’ll be reviewing these services in the next couple of weeks and post our findings here to help you determine which one may be best for you.