With remote working on the rise, and companies adopting digitisation and cloud-only solutions, how viable is the Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS)? Two experts offer their insights and the advantages of using DaaS.
Vikas Bhonsle, CEO at Crayon Software Experts India
In plain words, Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) is a cloud-based solution, just like any other SaaS, PaaS or IaaS, through which a service provider allows the user to access a virtual desktop from anywhere through the Internet. In DaaS, you get the entire package of the desktop which includes the operating system (OS), SaaS and legacy applications, without getting into the hassles of separate software procurement and their management.
The payment is on a ‘pay-as-a-go’ subscription basis, making it easy to scale up or scale down, as per changing demand. It is a turnkey service, which is easy to manage as it simplifies many of the IT admin tasks of desktop solutions. It is similar to a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) but, unlike VDI, where the organisation deploys virtual desktops from its own on-premises data centres, DaaS is entirely cloud-based.
Why DaaS?
IT is one of the most extensive overhead in traditional PC environments. Every organisation has to invest in a dedicated IT team for running the entire digital infrastructure, right from managing employee password resets to updating security patches in applications.
DaaS can be a viable solution for customers who prefer the centralisation, security and management of a VDI but prefer the cloud provider to handle the desktop management on their behalf. DaaS simplifies IT operations and delivers desktops with the OS and apps securely to its workforce.
With DaaS, workers can now easily access their work from anywhere on any device, especially for those who are remotely based. At times, IT can become a big challenge or crisis for the employee based out of a remote location. It can not only affect employee productivity but also affect billing hours. With DaaS, the complexity of OPEX is reduced to a great extent as the entire platform is cloud-based and any anomalies arising can be managed remotely, online by the service provider. Also, the companies can excuse themselves for the operations and management of the desktop, which is otherwise involved in traditional IT or VDI. It can be rapidly scaled up or scaled down as per the needs, keeping IT costs inline. DaaS takes care of securing access points for users, and the organisation’s data is securely stored and protected against data loss or device theft. It is an advantage in terms of Business Continuity and security.
Prashanth GJ, CEO at TechnoBind
Desktop-as-a-Service has been around for many years now – almost over 15 plus years. It had not really taken off all these years, for various reasons ranging from bandwidth constraints to limitations of the technology, which ended up in a very poor user experience. It wasn’t just the user experience that hampered large-scale adoption of DaaS. Although today the cloud will seem an obvious choice, there was widespread reluctance to move corporate data on to cloud infrastructure in the early days of hosted desktops. But things have changed today – may companies I have been speaking to already have a ‘cloud-first’ strategy in place. But the most significant development is the black swan event of the pandemic which is bringing about a major change in work environments across the world.
With the WFH here to stay and corporates seeing obvious benefits coming out of it, DaaS is one strategy that CIOs will look to take care of some of the challenges that a WFH may bring about. Control and security are among the top advantages that DaaS gives and with employees working from diverse locations, the IT never had control on the kind of networks being used to access corporate data or, for that matter, devices and the environment from which employees were accessing corporate data. DaaS helps you manage the risks that naturally come with giving your staff the freedom to work anywhere and on any device. It enables you to control the essentials such as data access and compliance without being overly restrictive. You no longer have to worry about what data is held on a user’s device as the data remains in the data centre at all times. This gives you control over all company assets because access can be revoked with the touch of a button. DaaS moves the security risk from hundreds of end-user devices and puts it all into the controlled and managed environment of a data centre. Lost or stolen laptops no longer provide a security risk. No data is on the local machine. As DaaS removes the need to create VPNs to access applications and data held by the company, it also removes the problem of users trying to bypass the security in the belief that it will make their life easier.
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