Businesses these days are adopting new ways of functioning. They are increasingly opting for remote working, managed IT support services and aggressive use of subscription-based services to reduce overhead and maintenance costs. However, working continuously in remote settings has its own challenges, such as the lack of high-performance computer systems and expensive software that experts may have to use daily. Not all employees have an expensive high-end personal computer with all bells and whistles.
However, businesses have found a solution to these issues as well as many service providers have come up with Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS). DaaS is a managed desktop service that enables businesses to deploy virtual desktops to their staff. Being virtual in nature, one can deploy desktops to any location allowing the staff to work as per their convenience. DaaS is a centrally managed IT service that doesn’t require on-premises infrastructure.
However, companies have to be quite careful while opting for a DaaS as there might be several variables that they want to check beforehand. Here’s a list of factors that businesses must consider to choose the right solution for their needs.
Location of the Service Provider and Users
Although the user’s location doesn’t really matter with DaaS, the low/high latency can still come out as a problem. Therefore, businesses must ensure that the service provider they’re choosing must be physically present in the particular country.
For instance, if a business has to deploy service in Australia, they have to ensure that their preferred service provider is located within the country as it will not impact the latency that much and ensure smooth functioning.
Performance Benchmarks
Ensuring performance benchmarks is also one issue that entrepreneurs have to check before opting for the managed DaaS service. Apart from latency and location, the quality of the software they are using and the virtual system’s capability matters greatly as these factors determine the overall efficiency and productivity.
Scalability
The DaaS provided has to be entirely scalable as no entrepreneur wants to keep switching between service providers when their business grows up and along with it the number of employees.
For instance, issues such as how long it will take to onboard users or how the system will cope with hundreds or even thousands of users. Similarly, there will be times when employees will leave and, in those times, the service needs to be flexible so that the business doesn’t have to bear unnecessary costs.
Businesses will need a solution with extensive automation capabilities to manage and accelerate such processes successfully in such a scenario.
Data Privacy and Information Security
In today’s corporate, data privacy and network security means everything. So much so that compromising your business data may mean compromising your business. Many industries now follow strict regulations that severely penalise companies for noncompliance and therefore, the DaaS service provider also needs to be compliant with such rules and regulations.
In addition, addressing issues such as how and from where users will access data from the file servers and will it be provided by cloud data services or the public cloud, must be addressed as well.
Ease of Use
DaaS is an already managed service relatively easy to use as it doesn’t require the user to bear typical responsibilities related to the guest OS, applications and user workspace. However, it is also the business’s responsibility to ensure that the solution is intuitive and easy to use. They need to ensure that users don’t need to install software or download plugins.
Desktop-as-a-service has many benefits, especially for small businesses that often find it hard to procure expensive systems and software. However, it also comes with several challenges such as training the staff on how to use modified applications and systems, having enough internet bandwidth and backup and privacy issues that might occur with certain service providers. Although privacy issues are usually not the case with reputed service providers like empower ICT that follow security and privacy regulations, you need to carefully verify the credentials of the company you are choosing as the service provider. empower ICT provides the best managed desktop services that help businesses optimise operation and administration of desktop deployment to improve efficiency and reduce downtime.