When COVID-19 hit in 2020, New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYC DEP)—responsible for moving a billion gallons of fresh water in each day while taking storm and wastewater out—used Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop to shift roughly 2,000 employees to remote work in a matter of days.

The move proved 90% faster than using traditional VPN connections, which it favored in the past. The choice paid off with faster connection speeds, more robust scalability, and multifactor authentication with access to both cloud and on-premises applications.