What is Desktop as a Service or DaaS?

Desktop as a Service or DaaS is the provision of a virtualised Windows computer, hosted with a DaaS provider, that enables businesses to run desktop applications designed to run on Windows PCs in the cloud.  This enables connection from anywhere over the internet and also on non-Windows devices.

The types of DaaS

There is a plethora of terminology for Desktop as a Service as well as a number of specific types of infrastructure.  Commonly this may include Virtual Desktop Infrastructure VDI, as well as Windows Remote Desktop Services RDS aka Terminal Services.  Terms may include Hosted Desktop, Hosted Remote Desktops, Windows Virtual Desktops, Virtual Apps and Hosted VDI.

What is the difference between VDI and Daas

VDI or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure is one of the technologies used in Desktop as a Service.  With a VDI deployment each user would have their own desktop operating system, dedicated virtual machines for each user.   A common alternative is the Windows Remote Desktop Service where there is just one Windows Server operating system and each user’s “desktop” is run as a session on that remote Desktop Server.  There are many benefits to this over VDI, typically it requires less overall storage and management, and resources such as memory or CPU cores are pooled between all the users making it more efficient and lowering costs.

Why choose DaaS

By opting for a cloud service like DaaS, organisations simply and easily outsource not only their IT infrastructure but also the management and support of it.  They reduce the risks of business disruption from IT hardware failure.

What are the benefits of DaaS

Businesses of any size can enjoy a raft of benefits from a cloud based DaaS solution, including:

• Easily enable staff to work from home or other locations
• Little or no upfront costs
• Costs move from Capex to Opex, freeing up capital to spend on other areas of the business
• All the processing is done on the hosted desktop servers meaning the local PCs can be very low spec, thereby extending the life of older desktops and laptops.
• Lower power costs than running on-premise servers, more ecologically friendly as there is a greater density of servers per kW than on-premise alternatives
• Companies can embrace a Bring Your Own Device BYOD policy without risk to data security
• A comparable user experience no matter where the user is located or what device they use
• No corporate data is held on the users’ devices, reducing risk of losing data if PCs or laptops are stolen
• Scalable and flexible, user numbers can be increased and decreased as needed
• Updates and patch management is made much easier. Windows updates are managed by the provider and application updates need only be applied once to the remote desktop server.

Use Cases

There are a number of examples where Desktop as a Service benefits businesses.

Avoiding the need for on site infrastructure

Many companies, especially smaller businesses, are questioning the need for local, on premise servers. Many applications and services have moved to cloud based web apps or cloud storage supporting Microsoft 365 Office apps. Often there remains one or two desktop applications that need Windows desktops to run and a shared database or files. These can be moved to DaaS where all the infrastructure needed to run the applications, including the “desktop” are hosted in the cloud. For small businesses with only a few users the cost of DaaS may be less than the cost of the electricity to run their own server, let alone other costs.

Catering for Remote Workers

Remote workers have in the past suffered from poorer access to business systems, but that should be a thing of the past. Where email and web based apps have come to the fore by offering the same systems wherever you are Desktop as a Service means that the remaining business software can also be presented to remote workers in an identical way to their office based colleagues.

Scalability

With on-site servers scaling up can be a nightmare, significant upfront costs, disruption, and timescales can hamper rapidly expanding businesses. DaaS on the otherhand, can be scaled up instantly. Equally as importantly it can also be scaled down to meet business needs. Saving costs instead of having redundant hardware.

Disaster Recovery

DaaS is an ideal disaster recovery solution. If you have a fire or flood in your office, or just a simple power cut, employees can continue working from home or another site, as long as they have an internet connection.

Security

DaaS providers will have a number of built in security measures and will also have options for additional security such as multi-factor authentication.

Implementation

Below are the typical steps involved in setting up and rolling out a Desktop as a Service project.

Choose a DaaS provider: There are many DaaS providers available in the market. You should choose a provider that meets your business needs and budget.

Work with your provider to design the desktop environment: You will need to configure the desktop environment to meet your business needs. This includes installing software applications and setting up user accounts. With DaaS from Your Office Anywhere our onboarding team will do all this for you.

Test the environment: Before rolling out DaaS to your employees, you should test the environment to ensure that it is working properly.

Roll out DaaS to your employees: Once you have tested the environment, you can roll out DaaS to your employees. This involves providing them with login credentials and instructions on how to access their remote desktop

Provide ongoing support: You will need to provide ongoing support to your employees to ensure that they can access their virtual desktops without any issues. The DaaS service from Your Office Anywhere is a fully managed service and we will look after the support of the platform

Why choose Your Office Anywhere as your Desktop as a Service provider?

Your Office Anywhere provide the full end-to-end managed service, owning maintaining and managing all the hardware (Servers, Network, Storage, Firewalls etc).

Each customer has their own dedicated Windows Remote Desktop Server providing the hosted desktop DaaS service

The term desktop as a service actually short changes the concept as typically customers are also getting Platform as a Service and Infrastructure as a Service included.  Along with the users’ desktops we can also provision any other back-end infrastructure required such as SQL servers, web services, application servers etc.

The emphasis on the DaaS solution is the “Service” part and Your Office Anywhere’s technical team are like your own IT department supporting everything for you.

Learn more & contact us about your Hosted Desktop today

Your Office Anywhere are one of the UK’s longest established Hosted Remote Desktop and Hosted Application providers, managing servers for small and medium businesses in secure, tier 3, UK data centres.   Find out more about our hosted desktop services or alternatively you can fill out or online contact form below or call us today on 01282 500318.