Are you feeling dissatisfied with your current VDI provider? Perhaps you’re facing one or more of the following challenges:

• looking to improve the performance, management, and observability of your on-prem virtual apps and desktops?
• dealing with too many non-productive, dissatisfied end-users?
• coming up to a renewal and looking for a more friendly and flexible alternative?
• forced to pay luxury tax?
• looking at inflexible contract terms?
• paying for functionality you are not using or cannot use?
• getting less support or losing service and support altogether?
• not big enough to move to the cloud?
• suddenly facing a new account relationship with another company?
• needing to purchase a 3rd party monitoring/DEX tool to gain proper insight into your VDI?
• feeling a lack of focus and attention from your current provider?

If any of the above points ring familiar, I suggest you give Workspot a look. For your VDI using on-premises VMs, there is no better solution than Workspot’s enterprise VDI platform engineered for simplicity. Powerful yet easy to manage, no other VDI solution offers greater end-user performance, reliability, and in-depth IT understanding via deep observability tools than Workspot. And Workspot’s VDI is not held back by top-heavy, expensive VDI solutions that are not designed for efficient, seamless migration to the cloud when you’re ready for that.

Above and beyond the architectural limitations of traditional VDI approaches, other factors are now creating massive uncertainty around customer relationships, pricing, service & support, and company focus on customers. At Workspot, our lone purpose is to delight our customers with the best end-to-end enterprise VDI platform for on-premises and hybrid VDI using any cloud of your choice, anywhere in the world, all managed by a single, unified management and control console.

So ……. What do you have to lose? We offer an easy process to see a demo and if you like what you see, take a risk-free test drive of Workspot’s VDI on a small initial subset of your own traffic. I’m confident you will like what you see!

Want to learn more? Download a copy of our new asset, Embrace the Future of VDI, and find out how you can quickly make your end-users much happier while your VDI life gets much easier!

The post Not Happy with Your Current VDI Provider? Now is the time to move to Workspot! appeared first on Workspot.

Although there are many approaches to virtual desktops, there are only three solutions that are software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings – Microsoft Windows 365, Amazon Workspaces and the Workspot Enterprise Desktop Cloud. Only one solution meets the complex requirements of large enterprises. In this blog I want to discuss what you can achieve with the Workspot Enterprise Desktop Cloud vs Microsoft Windows 365. Let’s compare Windows 365 with Workspot Cloud PCs.

Top Selection Considerations for Cloud PC Services

We’re going to discuss ten important considerations for when you compare Windows 365 with Workspot to help you choose the right Cloud PC solution for your organization. There is really one key takeaway: Enterprises need choices, because one size does not fit all when it comes to end user computing. Thinking through your requirements in each of these areas should lead you to the Cloud PC solution that best matches your requirements and available IT skill sets. As we compare Windows 365 to Workspot Cloud PCs, let’s drill down on ten key areas.

Which Public Cloud? Do You Have a Multi-Cloud Strategy?

Your first consideration is the public cloud provider. Are you looking for multi-cloud support? Workspot creates an abstraction layer on top of Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, allowing you to quickly and easily provision and manage Cloud PCs anywhere in the world, across multiple public clouds, from a single Workspot admin user interface. When you can deploy your Cloud PCs across multiple clouds, you gain performance benefits, optimized pricing and greater business resilience than you would receive from a single public cloud offering. Windows 365 is only available on Azure, and that limits your choices; you won’t have the option to take advantage of other public cloud capabilities as they evolve.

Whose Subscription? Yours? Theirs? Anyone’s?

Your next consideration is about control. When setting up your public cloud environment to work with your Cloud PCs, it’s important that you maintain control of this environment by using your own cloud subscription. With Workspot, you use a business subscription that is yours alone. Since it’s connected to the rest of your cloud infrastructure, it has to be exclusive to your company so you can maintain control of your environment. With Windows 365, your Cloud PCs could be placed into a shared subscription with others, limiting your control, level of security and introducing more complexity for compliance audits.

What’s Your Identity Management Preference?

When it comes to authentication solutions, it’s likely that this is a choice you made for your business long ago. Wouldn’t you expect to be able to extend that same authentication method to your Cloud PCs? With Workspot, unlike other Cloud PC solutions, you can. We enable secure access to your Workspot Cloud PCs using AD, Azure AD, Okta, Ping and more. What’s your identity authentication strategy now, and how might it evolve? Is it important to you to have choices in this area? If so, select a Cloud PC offering that evolves with you. Windows 365 only supports Azure AD for identity and will probably continue to only support Microsoft identity services, limiting your choices.

How Well Do You Like Your Current MFA Solution?

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is another area where having choices is important. If you’re already using Okta, Duo or other solutions, are you willing to change? With Workspot you can keep using your existing MFA solution. With Windows 365, you’ll have to change to Azure AD, because it’s your only option.

How Solid is Your Security Stack?

There are few things more important than your company’s security posture. With so much malware and ransomware out there, one wrong click can take your whole operation down for weeks and jeopardize your corporate data. It can cost your organization millions to recover from an attack. It’s why you’ve already carefully chosen your security stack – whether that includes Crowdstrike, Zscaler, Tanium, or Sentinel One, to name a few. We’re betting you’re reluctant to make a major change, and with Workspot, you don’t have to. We support your current security choices, so they work seamlessly with your Workspot cloud PCs.

Which Desktop Management Tools Do You Use?

How do you manage your physical PCs today? Workspot’s philosophy is that you should manage your Cloud PCs the same way. Why complicate things? For example, if you’re already using SCCM, you can use that to manage your Workspot cloud PCs too – there’s no need to change. If you’re using Intune or other tools, keep using them. Workspot is all about keeping it simple, yet flexible. Windows 365 only supports Intune for management, so unless you’re already using it, there will be a learning curve.

How Will You Manage Your Cloud PC Environment?

Monitoring your Cloud PC environment is critical for the success of your organization. IT administrators need to be aware of issues the moment they happen, even sooner. Workspot’s Network Operations Center (NOC) provides a broad and deep view into a customer’s Cloud PC environment. With Workspot NOC, customers can view all user connections and alarms in real time around the globe and take proactive actions to remedy issues before they impact users. Workspot NOC shows user connections and trouble spots on a global map, allowing the IT team to narrow in on geographic areas which may be experiencing issues. This speeds up efforts to quickly identify the issue and contain the blast radius, allowing a highly-secure, performant and reliable cloud PC offering.

How Much Bandwidth Do You Need?

Placing your workloads in the cloud means that there will be an increase in bandwidth used on your network, as well as added Internet bandwidth needed. Workspot does not charge ingress/egress fees. These are included in your Cloud PC subscription. Windows 365 sets a data cap which could result in restricted bandwidth if outbound data levels are exceeded.

Do You Know Which Devices Are Connecting To Your Cloud PCs?

Complete control of the types of devices that connect to your Cloud PCs is critical. Workspot offers the ability to control which operating systems can connect to Cloud PCs. Additionally, for Windows devices, Workspot security policy can limit the Windows platform version, require recent Windows updates to be installed, enforce antivirus and firewall enablement, limit connections from a wi-fi network and even limit connections to devices from specific domain-joined endpoints and worldwide device location. Windows 365 is limited to device platform and location only.

Do You Have Multiple Use Cases? Is Pricing Flexibility Important?

Optimizing costs for end user computing is one great reason to adopt Cloud PCs, because so much of the cost of provisioning and managing physical devices goes away.

When you move desktop workloads to the cloud, you need a Cloud PC solution that offers pricing model choices, not a “one-size-fits all” lock-in. Each of your use cases has a different usage pattern. For one use case, an hourly pricing plan might make the most sense. For other use cases, a monthly flat rate might be better for you. With Workspot, you have choices. You can mix and match pricing models to suit your organization’s use cases best. With Windows 365, you’re locked-in to a monthly contract for all your users, regardless of their usage patterns.

Workspot Offers Cloud PC Flexibility So You’re Ready for Anything

We’ve explored ten essential considerations that highlight the differences between Workspot’s enterprise-proven SaaS Cloud PC solution and Windows 365, in the hope that it will help lead you to the right choice for your Cloud PC implementation. We believe that solution flexibility is paramount, because as your business evolves, your Cloud PC solution must be able to evolve too.

Workspot Cloud PCs offer choices so your organization can achieve greater business agility, stronger security, and simplified IT while delivering stunning performance your end users will love. To learn more, visit www.workspot.com/cloudpc. Ready to see the Workspot SaaS Cloud PC platform in action? Schedule a demo and we’ll show you how it works!

The post Top 10 Criteria to Compare Windows 365 with Workspot Cloud PCs appeared first on Workspot.

Does the Cloud PC solution support a multi-cloud strategy?

Some Cloud PC solutions are confined to a single cloud, which may be fine for smaller companies. Workspot supports the multi-cloud strategy that most enterprise organizations have today, enabling greater agility and mitigating business disruption risk. Unlike any other solution, our innovative Desktop Control Fabric extends across multiple public clouds into any cloud region, providing greater reliability, fortifying your business continuity plan as well as delivering outstanding performance end users love.

Will the Cloud PC solution meet your enterprise requirements?

Most Cloud PC solutions will meet the needs of smaller companies that don’t have complex requirements for security or specific needs for management tools. On the other hand, most large enterprises have specific requirements for supporting their security stack and existing PC management tools, and asking them to change is too burdensome. They likely also need to customize their Windows 10/11 images, a capability not offered by some vendors.

Workspot Cloud PCs are completely customizable, and our Customer Success Team helps you ensure your enterprise requirements are met throughout the life of your Cloud PC implementation.

Will the Cloud PC solution pass your security audit?

Workspot made a fundamental architecture design decision to separate the control and data planes. This is a unique feature of our solution – no other vendor has this separation, and that has significant implications for the security of your Cloud PCs. What this means is that the Workspot Cloud PC solution is outside the purview of your security and compliance audits, because Workspot never encounters your corporate data. Other solutions have a shared, regional control and data plane, which is subject to such audits, because your data flows through their control plane. Additionally, while Workspot supports the security and MFA technology decisions you’ve already carefully made, other vendors require you to use their proprietary security products.

What does it take to get to production? Do you have the resources to perform this work?

You have a significant decision to make up-front about the best approach for modernizing VDI and replacing physical PCs. Do you have the skill sets and the time in-house to implement and manage a do-it-yourself (DIY) solution? You will still need to manage the infrastructure (even though it’s in the cloud!) and you still own the desktop SLA. Reliability is all on you. You could employ consultants to help you but that adds to your costs, both for deployment and ongoing management. Other DIY Cloud PC solutions are self-service. They may be fairly simple to deploy, but they are not customizable to meet enterprise needs, and you’re on your own to get support from a knowledgebase or from community help. any way you look at it, the DIY approach is resource-intensive for you.

Alternatively, our SaaS Cloud PC platform does all the heavy lifting for you. Our Customer Success Team gets to know your organization and your requirements, and they help you achieve your goals. We can have you up and running in days depending on your readiness, and we stay with you during every step of the deployment process and beyond.

Are you able to align cost with expectations? Do you have the resources to manage Cloud PC-related costs?

Of course, the cost of the Cloud PC solution is a huge consideration. There are DIY solutions that may seem attractively priced, but when you start adding in the cost of the consultants or employees required to deploy the solution and then manage it ongoing, plus third party products and tools to meet your requirements, the costs add up quickly. Another consideration is the pricing model for your Cloud PCs. Does the vendor provide flexibility here?

Workspot’s SaaS Cloud PC platform simplifies all of this. There are no consultants required, because there’s no complex infrastructure for you to contend with. We manage the SaaS platform, while you stay in complete control of your Cloud PCs. Plus, when you think about it, the various use cases you need to support all have different characteristics. Can the vendor offer both persistent and non-persistent Cloud PCs? Do they offer flexible pricing models to suit each use case? For example, a knowledge worker use case in which the user is active 40 or 50 hours per week is very different than the usage profile of a call center worker. One may benefit from a persistent desktop and flat-rate pricing while the other may benefit most from a non-persistent desktop and an hourly consumption-based pricing model. Will you have this flexibility to control costs?

Are you able to keep the Cloud PC service reliable?

With a DIY approach to Cloud PCs, the vendor provides an SLA for the virtual desktop broker. That’s it. The reliability of the overall Cloud PC solution and the day-to-day availability of the Cloud PCs for your users is your responsibility. This is where the complexity of DIY solutions gets you in trouble. It’s resource-intensive to stay on top of all the changes your cloud provider makes and modify your implementation accordingly, stay on top of infrastructure upgrades, and troubleshoot user issues. Are you prepared to allocate resources to this?

Workspot takes care of all of this for you. That’s the beauty of SaaS. We own the entire desktop SLA. The reliability of your Cloud PCs is our responsibility; your team doesn’t have to deal with troubleshooting, upgrades, or managing infrastructure. Our industry-leading 99.95% SLA speaks for itself.

Who can you call to troubleshoot a problem? Do you have the resources to interface with multiple vendors and internal departments to chase down the solution?

Troubleshooting complex infrastructure is time consuming and therefore, expensive. Complexity is one of the reasons you’ve decided to modernize VDI, so why would it be acceptable in a Cloud PC solution? With some solutions, you’ll need third party products. When an issue arises, who do you call? And how much downtime is acceptable while you sort out the root of the problem? Navigating multiple internal departments and vendors is not easy or fast.

With Workspot, if a problem arises, you contact us first. Our solution is instrumented throughout for 24×7 monitoring, allowing us to visualize problems and address them quickly. Even if the problem you’ve encountered is with your cloud provider, or perhaps an operating system upgrade has introduced an issue, we can often identify that and help you navigate a resolution with the vendor.

We believe enterprises need flexibility and choice to meet their stringent end user computing requirements and keep up with an ever-changing business environment. The Workspot SaaS Cloud PC platform modernizes VDI and brings new levels of agility to your organization so you can respond to whatever the future holds.

Ready to learn more? Schedule a demo and let’s talk about how Cloud PCs can meet your requirements.

The post How to Select the Right Cloud PC Solution to Modernize VDI appeared first on Workspot.

IT Leaders: Cloud PC Buyers Beware!

The Desktop as a Service (DaaS) landscape is evolving very quickly. Pretty much any analyst or CIO one talks with these days will tell you that DaaS is the way to go for end user computing, especially if you have a distributed workforce. It’s certainly no surprise to us; we’ve been implementing SaaS cloud PCs for customers for years now, and the flexibility, security and productivity benefits these organizations achieve with their cloud PCs is adding tremendous value to their organizations.

However, the DaaS landscape is getting more crowded, so you’ll need to weigh the various approaches and navigate through the hype to select the solution that’s right for your organization. DaaS solutions vary wildly. You’ll see some vendors offering a “DaaS” solution, but in reality it’s just a VDI broker offered either on-premises or in the cloud. Where’s the “desktop” part? We refer to this as “broker-as-a-service” because there’s still a lot of DIY implementation, management and troubleshooting tasks that are your sole responsibility in order to deliver a complete virtual desktop to an end user.

Other vendors offer a full desktop service referred to as a “cloud PC,” but that service is limited to delivery from only one public cloud. Workspot is the only comprehensive SaaS cloud PC service that spans multiple public clouds.

The Old Way: DIY PCs and VDI 

When we refer to DIY desktops, it encompasses both physical PCs and virtual desktop solutions, because in either case, the customer is responsible for procuring and managing infrastructure, operations and the SLA of the desktops. The notion of “doing-it-yourself” spans these computing formats. We wrote a blog that poses the question of whether SaaS cloud PCs will disrupt and ultimately replace physical PCs. What do you think? When you consider all the overhead involved in buying, imaging, shipping, troubleshooting, updating and refreshing physical PCs and workstations, it sure seems like cloud PCs could win the day. And that’s leaving out one of the most challenging parts of managing a fleet of physical devices: securing them and passing your compliance audits.

Similarly, until recently, the only way to centralize and virtualize your enterprise Windows desktops was to invest large amounts of your time and money into Virtual Desktop Infrastructure – commonly known as VDI. VDI software is limited to provisioning, brokering and gateway functions. It’s up to you, the customer, or a third-party reseller, systems integrator, or consultant you hire – to architect, integrate and pay for all the infrastructure: the CPU, memory, storage, and networking. The upfront cost for all of this is huge. But it doesn’t stop there. Thereafter, a team of experts, whether they are part of your in-house IT team or an outsourced team of people, will need to maintain and troubleshoot this complex system. Given all that complexity, virtual desktop reliability can be a serious problem, and the cost of downtime can be significant. We have customers who say it costs them a million dollars a day when their on-prem VDI is down. Ultimately, after all that work and expense, many companies find that because architecting and operating these systems is so complex, their end users are unhappy with the performance.

The primary considerations when considering DIY solutions, whether VDI or physical PCs and workstations, are the following:

1. Do you have the right skill sets in-house to integrate all the moving parts & pieces of the technology stack? if not are you willing to hire them? If so, is this the best use of their time?
2. If an end user is unable to connect to their desktop or is experiencing poor performance, do you have the expertise to figure out what’s wrong and fix it? Can you afford the cost of that downtime?
3. Are you able to optimize costs for your DIY approach? For example, if you have a VDI broker in the cloud, do you have the people and the tools to understand the cost variability of services in different cloud regions and manage your deployment accordingly?

Bottom line: When you take a do-it-yourself approach to end user computing, it’s definitely resource-intensive, and expensive!

The New Way: Enterprise SaaS Cloud PCs  

Cloud PC High Availability

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could subscribe to a comprehensive, global service for enterprise cloud PCs through one vendor who takes complete responsibility for the reliability of your cloud PCs? Workspot does exactly that. The Workspot Enterprise Desktop Cloud is the only SaaS platform for delivering enterprise-proven cloud PCs to your end users from multiple public clouds. We make sure that your end users can reliably access their cloud PCs and that they enjoy great performance so they can be productive everywhere. Our big data collection and correlation engine, Workspot Watch, monitors cloud PCs globally to identify potential issues that could pose a security threat, helping to strengthen your Zero Trust Security posture. Overall, we offload the burden of desktop provisioning and management from your IT team so they can focus on solving problems more strategic to your business.

360 Degrees of Cloud PC Innovation

From day one of our engagement, we’re innovating together. We call it 360 degrees of innovation because at every step of our cloud PC journey we are inventing new capabilities based on your requirements and evolving the platform.

Our Workspot Customer Success Team takes your first use case live and then continues to support you throughout your digital transformation, acting as your advocate every step of the way. Once in production, our Workspot Support Team is the one place to go to help you identify and resolve any issues that arise.

The Workspot Engineering Team is continuously updating the service to optimize costs, strengthen security, and improve performance and reliability.

Flexible Cloud PC Consumption

The Workspot platform significantly changes the economics of end user computing. The SaaS approach alleviates much of the management and troubleshooting time and expense from your team, allowing them to apply their skills in more strategic ways.

Moreover, you have an opportunity to fine-tune compute costs for each user. Different types of end users have unique cloud PC usage patterns, so how could one pricing model possibly be adequate? Here, flexibility is the name of the game. Our pricing models are flexible to fit your purchasing and usage models – and can be different within your company across your various departments and use cases. When predictable pricing is a must, choose our flat-rate subscription option for exactly the resource you need for each end user, whether it’s a dedicated desktop, shared desktop, or just access to a few applications – each is available at the same fixed price per user per month, globally. That may not be the case with other solutions, so evaluate this carefully. When hourly pricing is key – choose our Variable Use Subscription option. If you need more options, talk to us about customized pricing that makes sense for your use cases.

The advantages of SaaS cloud PCs over DIY approaches to virtual desktops are compelling. Greater business agility, stronger security, simplified IT and the stunning performance users love are what you’ll find with Workspot cloud PCs.

Ready to see enterprise cloud PCs in action? Schedule a demo and we’ll show you how it works!

The post Compare SaaS Cloud PCs with DIY Virtual Desktops appeared first on Workspot.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what cloud computing is like for IT teams – every day is “Day 1”. Cloud providers change their environment so frequently that each day brings something new that needs to be identified, understood, and its impact assessed – because these changes can disrupt your business. And then you have to do it all over again tomorrow. And the next day, and the next…

Constant Change

This frenzied effort to keep up with the constant changes imposed by the cloud providers is a far cry from what most IT people are accustomed to. Traditional end user computing is more static. Physical desktops are managed by IT and on-premises virtual desktops are firmly in their control. The only change that happens to these systems is when IT is good and ready to effect it. When the legacy VDI vendors release an upgrade, most VDI admins wait a good, long while before implementing it. And there is a highly orchestrated process surrounding these upgrades – they are planned, tested and finally deployed, often years after the release becomes available. Why? Because of the complexity of the changes and the potential for these changes to cause a business disruption.

Because business-critical applications and tools –  for example, Okta, Office 365, Intune, Zoom, Slack, and others – are updated nearly daily, it takes considerable IT resources to try to keep up with so many changes and to maintain a stable stack. And good luck trying! The bottom line is that when it comes to cloud computing, and in particular end user computing in the cloud, the dynamic has changed –  IT teams can no longer control change.

You Can’t Control Change. Time to Embrace It.

There is no doubt that moving desktop workloads to the cloud offers significant business benefits. We’ve discussed these many times: Greater agility to respond to business dynamics, stronger security, remote work support, reduced costs, and simplified IT processes that free up valuable resources. I could go on. Cloud desktops are very compelling, but achieving all these benefits is predicated on choosing the right solution.

We believe that SaaS cloud desktops are the way to go, hands down, because you need 24×7 help to stay on top of the constantly shifting world of the cloud. With other solutions, you’re on your own, trying to identify, analyze, and troubleshoot non-stop cloud provider updates. Here is what you can expect with Workspot cloud desktops and workstations:

1. Our Customer Success Team makes sure you go live fast and you have a successful Day 1 experience. Going live can take as little as a few days depending on your team’s schedule. We are really, really good at this, because we have some of the smartest people in the world who are tuned-in to your specific requirements, and we have lots of practice with cloud desktop implementations in large organizations. We definitely shine on Day 1, but what about “Day N”? After you go live, who will help you with constant change?
2. Workspot Watch gathers and analyzes health data about your implementation 24×7.  You need to know how your cloud PC vendor is going to help you for the long term, not just Day 1.  In conjunction with the people at Workspot who are dedicated to your success, we surround your implementation with our big data trending and correlation engine – Workspot Watch. Watch drives the Network Operations Center where our support teams monitor, troubleshoot and analyze the health of Workspot cloud PCs globally. You benefit from this global view of cloud PC health – across clouds – because our trending capabilities reveal activity patterns that could indicate a brewing problem, whether it’s a Workspot issue, a problem with your network, a cloud provider outage, or a security risk. We are constantly seeking to understand system behavior and make it actionable, whether the issue only affects a few users or could possibly affect millions. Without this kind of oversight across cloud regions, how can you anticipate, and then avoid, a problem that could disrupt your business?
3. Our Support Team is on your team too. Quite often we are able to act as your advocate with your cloud provider so issues are resolved more quickly. This is the consequence of having strong relationships with the Azure and Google Cloud organizations. We know the right questions to ask and how to navigate these massive organizations so you can get the help you need. It’s all part of our Day N success formula.

Workspot watch collects millions of messages across multiple clouds globally to help ensure everyday is a successful cloud PC day.

Your IT Team Has Better Things to Do

IT resources are constrained, so when a service can do an amazing job for you and free up some of those resources to work on more strategic projects, it makes sense to explore the possibilities. Moving desktops to the cloud is a high-return activity when you choose a SaaS solution that takes responsibility for your desktop SLA. The Workspot Enterprise Desktop Cloud is an enterprise-proven platform for delivering cloud PCs, cloud workstations, or just the apps from Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud to end users around the globe. Find out why our customers love us so much!

Ready to learn more about how every day is a great cloud PC day with Workspot? Let’s find time for a quick demo and discuss your requirements.

The post For IT Teams, Every Day is Day 1 with Cloud Computing. appeared first on Workspot.

Legacy On-Premises VDI (2008 – now)

When VDI first appeared in 2008, it was mission-critical packaged software. Today, customers still buy perpetual licenses, acquire servers & storage, and usually hire an integrator to create the solution. Then the really hard part begins; they have to run the stack either by themselves or they hire a service provider to do it for them. Legacy VDI is a complex, do-it-yourself (DIY) software stack that is built for a single customer and typically runs in a single data center. In Figure 1, we have listed the various capabilities of the VDI stack, along with the price per user, per month for each capability. Customers spend between $30-$40 per user per month on the infrastructure (servers, storage, network) required, plus they spend between $10-$20 per user, per month for the VDI software stack. Then the customer spends $50-$70 per user, per month for integrating and operating the stack. That adds up! Our experience is that the OpEx just keeps going up over time because of the complexity of managing the legacy stack.

Of course, faced with the complexity of setting up and managing this stack themselves and the high costs that come with it, it’s not surprising that customers yearned for simple, SaaS VDI  –  like Salesforce is to CRM. Unfortunately at this time, Microsoft Windows desktop licensing did not permit running Windows desktops on shared infrastructure. This prevented anyone from delivering the service that would solve the complexity and high costs customers suffered.

 Figure 1: Legacy VDI complexity

Legacy Desktop-as-a-Service (2014-now)

One of the first Desktop-as-a-Service solutions was launched by Amazon in 2014. Since nobody could run Windows 7 in the public cloud because of the licensing issue, Amazon offered single user Windows Server 2012 as the base operating system. The solution was architected like a modern SaaS platform – it was multi-tenant and turnkey.  Critically, they chose to run the Windows Server OS in single-user mode versus the more common shared session-mode that most customers and service providers had been running until that time. Even though the underlying OS was a server operating system, it did not suffer from the myriad app compatibility issues of a multi-session environment. However, it was still a Windows Server – a Windows 7 “experience” – and not the actual Windows 7 desktop version that most customers run on their PCs.

Broker-as-a-Service (2015-now)

We launched our first VDI solution in late 2015. It was a multi-tenant SaaS service that delivered the key software components of VDI as a service – popularly called “broker as a service.” At the time it was a massive innovation in the VDI space. The service was revolutionary for customers in that it eliminated complexity for IT teams tasked with deploying a complex VDI software stack, and enabled them to achieve astonishingly fast time-to-value, not to mention a significant drop in the OpEx associated with managing legacy VDI. Since the Windows desktop licensing restrictions were still in place at this time, we were unable to launch what customers really needed: A turnkey cloud VDI service. The feedback from customers was “meh – you have solved 20% of my problem.” 80% of customer problems were still unsolved. That’s because with broker-as-a-service, the customer still needs to buy infrastructure, integrate infrastructure and operate infrastructure. Although we could not solve the remaining VDI infrastructure challenges (because of those Microsoft licensing restrictions!), we were able to be forward-thinking about what we believed to be inevitable: The ability to provide VDI as a turnkey service on Azure. Therefore, we moved ahead to battle-test many components of our next innovation – a cloud VDI service that takes the heavy-lifting off the shoulders of IT folks. For example, we made sure we could conduct seamless upgrades to all components of our service stack – including clients – with zero downtime. We perfected the customer success and agile development processes that would allow us to receive customer requirements and then roll them out as new features within days or weeks – not the months or years the VDI industry typically sees.

Cloud Desktop Fabric (2017-now)

We became aware of Microsoft’s intention to enable Windows desktop licensing on Azure in mid-2016, and because of all the efforts of our development team, we were ready! We launched our turnkey cloud VDI service at the same time as the Windows 10 licensing became available in Azure in March 2017. Now, customers can deploy persistent and non-persistent Windows 10 desktops in any of the existing 54+ (and any future) regions of Azure around the world. Initial deployment can take as little as a few days, and you can add cloud desktops and GPU workstations around the globe in minutes. Workspot Cloud VDI is a global, enterprise-customizable, turnkey cloud desktop service. No one else could do this in 2016, and to this day, that is still the case. The Cloud Desktop Fabric for Cloud VDI is what enables large, enterprise organizations to meet their requirements. Our service supports their custom requirements for images, authentication, and the use of their desktop management tools. That’s how we avoid disrupting existing IT processes; we just make everything much easier! For organizations with remote employees and contractors, the Global Desktop Fabric architecture is fundamental to ensuring their globally distributed workforces have secure access to apps and data – no matter where they need to conduct business – and that the performance these people experience keeps them productive and happy.

So where we were a decade ago was not such a pretty picture. Today other vendors still offer old-school, on-premises VDI, broker-as-a-service and old-school DaaS. Workspot took a giant leap beyond those products. Our Cloud Desktop Fabric for Cloud VDI architecture is a momentous innovation for customers.  The world of IT and enterprise business today is complicated enough; you need information technology that helps you get back to business rather than micro-managing tech. In that sense, Workspot is an impressive business growth tool, because it removes opportunity boundaries, so you’re free to grow!

Figure 2: The Journey from Legacy VDI to the Cloud Desktop Fabric for VDI

Ready to talk about your enterprise requirements? Schedule a demo and let’s explore!

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1st Party or 3rd Party?

While I am all for parties, when it comes to DaaS, the 1st party is the best party. Why? It has to do with the degree of control you have as a consumer of the service and the amount of influence you can have when it comes to new feature development. The DaaS of yesteryear is typically run by a 3rd party – a managed service provider (MSP) – who runs a legacy software stack that was developed by someone else. They have very little influence over the roadmap for that stack, and that means you, as the consumer of the service, have even less. In my view, this is really a disconnect from everything that is possible in the cloud era – namely, agile development, which enables dynamic roadmaps. A DaaS service that can quickly respond to customer requirements – in weeks or even days – sure sounds better than the months or years it typically takes legacy providers to respond to feature requests. And with an MSP between you and the tech developer, how do you even make your needs heard? With a 1st party provider, you have direct access to make those requests. With Workspot as your 1st party provider, you have customer success champions that intercept your requirements and take them directly to the development team for consideration. The architects and IT leaders we talk with value having this close proximity to where decisions are made about service features, and we value the input our production customers offer that turns into new features. The “1st party” flavor of DaaS makes that kind of partnership with customers real, and that’s the way we believe it should work.

Do-it-Yourself Fans have Options

Some organizations have large enough IT teams with the right skillsets to actually build a cloud virtual desktop solution, implement it and then maintain it on an ongoing basis. There are vendors from whom you can buy a VDI control plane that lives in the cloud, and then you build on top of that to complete the solution. We refer to this is “Broker-as-a-Service”, although some of the vendors that offer this capability will call it” turnkey DaaS”. It’s ok if they want to call it turnkey, but it’s really “turnkey Broker-as-a-Service”, not turnkey DaaS. As the consumer of the service, you need to know what will be required of your IT team to implement and maintain it. It’s sort of like if Salesforce offered you a “turnkey” CRM solution, but then you find out that your IT team has to size and procure the infrastructure for the service, implement it, update it, troubleshoot it, and fix it when any of the components break (you own the SLA!). It’s not our idea of “turnkey”, but again, “turnkey” is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak. For Workspot, “Do-it-Yourself DaaS” is diametrically opposed to “turnkey DaaS”. There’s just no confusing the two things. DIY is fine if you have the IT resources to deal with it – and a truly turnkey DaaS solution is the right choice if you want PCs in the cloud that are just there for you, with 99.95% availability. Plus, none of the DIY options are cloud-native, and that has a whole bunch of consequences too, but that’s another blog. 

Turnkey DaaS Done Right – What Customers Want

We define turnkey DaaS in terms of what enterprise architects and IT leaders need – that’s what really matters. Here’s what prospects and customers tell us they want from their turnkey DaaS service:

1. Fast time-to-value
2. 99.95% cloud PC service availability
3. Flat-rate, predictable pricing
4. Enterprise-ready

No infrastructure, no maintenance, no upgrades. Easy scalability that happens across cloud regions in minutes. is that your idea of turnkey too?

That’s our definition of turnkey DaaS, as told to us by the people who matter most – our customers.

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• Complex to implement, manage, operate, upgrade?
• Slow performance for end users?
• Expensive to buy – lots of infrastructure – servers, storage, networking, hypervisors, etc?

Those are not happy words, but many of you have experienced those things. Let’s take a fresh look at what’s possible now. What happens when you put your PCs in the cloud? What can it do for you? How do you deploy them? Why would you change what you already have?

Cloud PCs: The Workspot Difference

You can take a variety of approaches to deploy your desktops and apps in the cloud. For example, you could just move your existing on-premises deployment architecture to the cloud, but you really haven’t changed much other than the need to buy infrastructure. You dialed back “expensive” – sort of. Implementation, ongoing management, and upgrades continue to be complex, (and time-consuming, which = expensive), and your users are still experiencing slow performance. We hear it all the time.

Why would you choose that? Next! Here’s the Workspot Cloud PC difference: When you choose the right cloud-native architecture for deploying your virtual desktops in a public cloud, that’s when something magical happens:

• Simple deployments
• Fast performance – even better than physical PCs!
• Lower cost – eliminate infrastructure costs and reduce OpEx

Those are words to live by. Let me show you how our Cloud PC solution changes everything you know about VDI.

What is the Enterprise Desktop Cloud Platform?

The Workspot Enterprise Desktop Cloud platform enables you to use a single pane of glass to deploy your Cloud PCs and cloud workstations. These Windows 10 desktops live in any Azure region in the world, and users can use any device to securely access their desktops, apps, and data.

The Cloud PC pricing model is just like when you buy a physical PC – the price depends on the configuration of the virtual desktop. Makes sense, right? Just choose your configuration: Just need apps? Ok. Will Shared Desktops work for your use case? No problem. And if you need true Windows 10 PCs in the cloud, there are three config choices depending on what your users need. Have power users like BIM folks and design engineers? There’s a GPU workstation configuration for them too (and by the way, our customers report faster GPU-intensive app performance than a physical workstation!).

Cloud PCs Are Insanely Simple and Enterprise Class

So let’s say you have users in Tokyo, Australia, India, Brazil, UK, Canada, and Houston. From a single management console, you can deploy Cloud PCs into the closest Azure region to your users. The deployment is simple, but the solution is enterprise-class:

• The Cloud PCs are created from your corporate Windows 10 image, not a generic image
• The Cloud PCs inherit all your existing security and networking policies
• The Cloud PCs connect to your existing AD and 2FA

How long does this take? Just a few days for everything to be up and running! That’s it! That is crazy when you realize you can spend months deploying traditional VDI in just one data center!

Typically the task that takes longest is creating the network connectivity between Azure and your data center – S2S VPN, ExpressRoute, etc. After that, it is essentially just choosing your regions and creating desktops.

This distributed deployment model is made possible by the power of the cloud:

• A single Workspot control plane running as a multi-tenant service in the cloud is architected to enable the creation and management of Cloud PCs anywhere in the world. This is possible because we only send control traffic through our control plane. That’s a very important distinction. The latency between the desktop and our control plane does not affect performance.
• Microsoft is building tens of Azure regions, so it is very likely that you can find an Azure region close to your end users wherever they are in the world. We find that for most users, you can find an Azure region within 50ms.

Cloud PCs Perform Better

Workspot’s deployment architecture delivers better than PC performance. And I am not talking about your low-end PC. I am talking better performance than a $10,000 liquid cooled workstation. How is this possible?

Two things make it possible:

• Data Center Class Hardware: The compute power available in the cloud is data center class. These are the highest performance servers because they can be cooled with data center-class equipment. Contrast that to laptops where cooling capabilities limit the compute power you can squeeze into a portable form factor. Desktops can be cooled more effectively than laptops, but having loud fans does not create a nice working environment.
• Latency: Of course, with desktops and laptops the compute power is located a few milliseconds away from the end user. The cloud is going to be further away. But because of the tens of Azure regions, most users are within 50ms of a region. The human response time is 215ms. That means they cannot sense that it is lagging if the overall response time is <200ms. Low latency cloud regions enable that kind of response time.

So combine data center-class hardware at a latency that is below the human response time threshold and now you understand how we can deliver performance better than PCs. Some of our customers are running 3D CAD models across 3 monitors and they are replacing $10,000 liquid cooled workstations with Workstation Cloud. Now that’s “digital transformation”; it’s completely changing their business model and making it possible to pursue new opportunities around the world. Exciting stuff!

For folks who have been doing VDI for a while, your first question might be “What about my apps? Won’t they become slower if they are not in the same data center?” And the answer is: You get physical PC-like performance. Remember that 95% of the world uses a physical PC, not VDI. The apps are not co-located with physical PCs. SaaS apps are not located in the data center. And your most important application – Office 365 – is not located in the data center. The performance of the desktop in the cloud will be as good, if not better than that physical PC.

Buy Cloud PCs Like You Buy a Physical PC

How do you buy a PC today? You test a few configurations. Then you order N PCs of the configuration you like. The manufacturer ships it to your office. You open the boxes, re-image with your corporate image, test for user compatibility, and then you ship it to the user somewhere in the world. The PC budget is well established. And the buying process is relatively straightforward and well understood.

Buying Cloud PCs is very similar to buying a PC. You just test each of the available virtual desktop configurations in the cloud. Then you buy N desktops. You upload your corporate image into Azure. We help you create N Cloud PCs. And then – here’s the fun part – you just email the desktops to the end users! I’m going to say it! It could be even simpler than buying a PC! What do you think?

Forget Everything you Know about VDI!

Workspot Cloud PCs change everything about VDI. It is simple to set up a virtual desktop, deliver PC-like performance, and you buy it just like you’d buy a PC (except for the shipping part!). This is how Workspot has really revolutionized VDI and put the emphasis back on DESKTOP. Forget everything you know about VDI.

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