Understanding the Advantages of Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS)

May 29th, 2012

With so many solutions moving to the cloud have you considered also moving to whole user desktops?

Today?s post is by Mark Davis; Sr. Vice President of Operations and CTO at SafeSourcing.

For the past few years we have been hearing about virtual servers, clouds, Software-as-a-Service (Saas) models and all have great reasons for why they are being talked about.? These same traits:? cost-effectiveness; scalability; easy-to-service also apply to a growing trend in the corporate world toward virtual desktops/instances or Desktop-as-a-Service.?

Similar to applications that remotely let you access a computer at the office or at home (i.e. Teamviewer) this new service allows you to pick and choose the applications, memory, internet speed and how a system is used without the costs of buying PCs, software CDs and installing and configuring the environment.? These easily accessible desktops could be opened with iPads, Macs or older Desktop PCs from anywhere with an internet connection.? Today we will look at some of the reasons many companies are considering using DaaS providers in their new IT plans.

Reduced Hardware Costs

New computer hardware is a necessity of any company as software and technology changes require upgraded equipment just to keep up.? With DaaS you can create multiple user environments that can be configured based on the functionality needed.? In this way, users can access and use what seems like multiple computers from one location, reducing costs needed to have these views.? With many companies like Desktone offering this service, they absorb the costs to upgrade and maintain the computer equipment needed for the virtual desktops.? Since virtual desktops are typically installed on large networked servers, adding more hard drive space, memory or internet speed is easily done and is handled by the provider.??

Easy application support and installation

Aside from getting new hardware installed, installing and configuring the software needed can also be very time consuming and if done incorrectly, can open holes of vulnerability into your company.? With Desktop-as-a-Service providers like Applications2U, users can preconfigure all of the applications they will allow accessibility to by their employees.? These instances, once configured, are then available to any user that needs it without having to reconfigure a new pc or even to apply a saved image to a new PC.? All upgrades and patches can be applied by the provider behind the scenes with no effort by your company.

Control and Monitoring

Most of the major providers of DaaS like Nivio?s solution easily provide centralized administrative control to allow users to do only the types of things they want to allow by controlling each of the configured instances.? While many large companies with experienced IT staff can exact this same level of control, there are thousands of medium to small companies who do not have the resources in-house to do this and being able to control everything from a central administration panel is a terrific tool for them.? Another nice benefit of control is that many of the providers offered paid, free and rental licenses for applications giving the capability to allow use of applications for certain projects without the expense of purchasing the entire application.

For more information about how begin to research 3rd party DaaS providers for your company, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.??

We look forward to your comments.

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