Everything you need to know about Desktop as a Service

Cloud computing has become a vital part of our everyday lives. It is helping individuals and organizations across the globe to improve the efficiency of work. While the cloud transition is continuously growing, the ongoing pandemic has further pushed the companies to migrate to the cloud to meet their business and operations objectives. Thanks to its easy-to-use model, global business leaders are adopting the everything-as-a-service (XaaS) paradigm to take control over their IT resources. This new “as-a-service” model is helping companies use and pay for IT resources. Because they can now choose the number of services and resources they need from the cloud, firms gain greater flexibility and scalability. Desktop as a Service (DaaS) is one such cloud service. It allows users to access virtual desktops from anywhere via the internet.

What is Desktop as a Service (DaaS)?

As the name suggests, DaaS is a cloud-based computing service just like SaaS, IaaS, or PaaS where an external third-party vendor hosts the backend infrastructure and provides virtual desktops on-demand to individuals or organizations. These virtual desktops are created and deployed within the servers of the cloud-based service provider or the vendor. All the backend infrastructure such as processing power, memory, storage, application suite, and services are supplied and owned by the service provider. A user is provided with all these aforementioned services and tools as a package through the virtual desktop. The use of DaaS is facilitated by a cloud-based network and end users can leverage these virtual desktops on their laptops, tablets, or smartphones. 

desktop as a service

How Does it Work?

Desktop as a Service is a cloud-based solution. Therefore, a virtual desktop that a user accesses is hosted by a service provider in the cloud and is delivered through an active internet connection. Since the whole desktop is hosted in the cloud, DaaS provides the flexibility of accessing it from anywhere and on any device that supports the virtual desktops. This allows for great flexibility while being able to keep up with the rise of remote work culture. 

In a DaaS delivery model, the service provider controls all the backend infrastructure and expenditures associated with the maintenance, sparing the users from advanced operational costs. The service provider takes care of storage, security, system upgrades, and backups. The provider then charges the users or organizations in a subscription-based model for rendering the services.

Benefits

DaaS offers several benefits such as future-proof designs, adaptive platforms, flexibility, and reduced operating costs. Here are the major advantages of Desktop as a Service.

Security and Reliability

A key advantage of the Desktop as a Service paradigm is security and reliability. Like with every cloud-based service, every tool, application, platform, and service is updated regularly — mitigating the risk of cyberattacks. Cloud vendors also manage the data encryption, network transfers, connection protocols, and architectural security to provide a hassle-free experience for their subscribers. DaaS provides flexibility to the users. They can access their virtual desktops from any compatible device from anywhere, with just an active internet connection. DaaS also helps in the relocation of resources, clients, and virtual desktop management with ease — usually through a control center. 

Data Backup and Recovery

Another major advantage of DaaS is that all the data and user memory are secure. Users will not have to face the traditional problems of data loss, corrupt files, or intruder threats with DaaS. All the data is stored on a secure server on the vendor side and is accessed by users via the internet. Regular and timely data backups, data security, maintenance, and restoring the data backups are provided by the vendors. 

desktop as a service

Costs

With DaaS, businesses do not have to go through the costly purchase, maintenance, and overhead costs associated with setting up in-house physical or virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solutions. It enables organizations to mitigate all the overhead associated with IT and peripheral management. And since DaaS is a pay-per-usage subscription-based service, it allows users the flexibility to pay only for the number of resources or services consumed.  

Drawbacks

While DaaS offers several advantages to organizations and individuals, its novice nature and the way it works and operates create certain drawbacks too. Here are the top two drawbacks of the Desktop as a Service paradigm.

Licensing

Desktop in the cloud still requires having a valid set of licenses for the operating system and the applications inside it to run. While many argue that this is not a drawback of DaaS or any other cloud-based service, it simply cannot rule out the associated excessive licensing costs. Most modern DaaS providers allow users to either use their own licenses or bake in the licensing fee in the service billing. Either way, you still end up paying the licensing fee.

Connectivity Dependent 

DaaS is also a network-dependent service just like any cloud-based service. While a virtual workstation comes with the flexibility of accessibility anywhere, it is bound by an active internet connection — specifically one that offers enough bandwidth and responsiveness to support and handle heavy applications like a virtual desktop.

Conclusion

DaaS is turning out to be one of the most dependable utility computational environments. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has further fueled the growth of cloud paradigms like DaaS. This infrastructure has already been implemented and is currently in widespread use by various multi-national companies and individuals across the globe. With the rapid evolution of cloud computing and its paradigms due to the ongoing pandemic, Desktop as a Service could play a very crucial role in powering and shaping the IT landscape in the near future. 

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