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Isn’t it challenging to create a remote working environment for employees? Do you want a better, feasible, and simple managed service?
“Virtual desktop hosting is the technology that helps you use virtual desktops on the cloud via the internet.”
“Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is a state-of-art technology implementation that centralizes your desktops using desktop virtualization. Your business uses desktops virtually on physical machines that are simply lending a physical medium for virtual desktop access.”
When compared, it is easier to set up a remote working culture with cloud VDI. And if you are looking for such a service then Graphon analyzed some options that you can go through. Not only your team need to centralize desktop infrastructure in case of on-premise VDI, but it also ensures other things like load balancing, uptime, VPN access, etc., for remote working. As a result, the IT disturbance in an organization during and post VDI implementation is cost-intensive and challenging to overcome.
For this reason, using virtual desktop hosting is an optimum choice. It uses desktop virtualization, but cloud servers are used in place of centralizing desktops on-premise.
What Is Virtual Desktop Hosting?
What are virtual desktops?
Before knowing the concept of virtual desktop hosting or cloud desktops, here’s what you need to know about virtual desktops.
Virtual desktops are virtual images of your desktops, including operating systems, apps, and resources. These pre-configured images do not reside on one computer but are externally hosted on a central data server, on-premise, or on the cloud.
Users of virtual desktops open virtual desktops on endpoint devices, which are nothing but your laptop, computer, phone, or tablet. However, the range of your virtual desktops depends on the hosting.
There’s no difference in the look and feel of virtual desktops and physical PCs. If you create persistent desktops, your users can customize the virtual desktop according to their usage patterns and preferences.
Virtual desktop hosting virtualizes your desktops on a remote server, such as the cloud. This type of managed service is offered under a specific pricing model to businesses. The cloud provider performs desktop virtualization and offers desktops over the internet. The VDI cloud provider manages the storage, security, updates, and backups. Every task that is conducted in-house by your IT team during on-premise VDI implementation is executed and performed by the cloud provider. This is why hosted desktops are simpler to use and manage.
How Is It Different From VDI?
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is desktop virtualization on-premise. The only difference between VDI and cloud desktops is how we host these infrastructures.
We would host VDI on-premise on a server and data center created with our internal team’s resources. Hosted desktops are hosted on a cloud server, managed, and maintained by the cloud provider. This includes setting up the data center, creating a connection broker for virtual resources, and managing a hypervisor for virtual machines.
Why would we use virtual desktop hosting in place of on-premise VDI?
A cloud provider manages cloud desktops, which gives us the flexibility to customize usage and manage resources without incurring expenses. The upgrade is automatic and simpler.
The backend of virtual desktop hosting is VDI only. The infrastructure is created using similar data centers (Much larger), hypervisors, connection brokers, and load balancers. We even get 99.99% uptime and optimum services on-demand with proper management.
How Are Cloud Desktops Beneficial?
Businesses have been using traditional desktops for more than a decade. These desktops have restricted access to BYOD, remote working, and flexible working. It is easier to enable BYOD, remote working, and advanced security with hosted desktops. Let’s explore how:
1. Effective TCO
The upfront costs of virtual desktop hosting are much less than on-premise VDI. There’s enormous capital expense involved in on-premise VDI, including hardware hosted, data server cost, hypervisor, load balancers, and the cost of maintaining the infrastructure.
In the case of cloud desktops, the Total Cost of Ownership is less because it is a service. The cloud desktops are offered from a server shared with many other tenants. Further, there’s no need to spend on a huge IT team.
2. Managed Service
Since hosted desktops are offered under a managed service, it is managed and upgraded by the cloud provider. The cloud provider ensures complete server security and relevancy from security patches and upgrades to maintenance activities.
3. Security
Cloud desktops are naturally secure because of the way the infrastructure is designed. When we are accessing hosted desktops on an end device, the device doesn’t store the desktop data. Although cloud desktops are identical to your in-house physical units, these are still virtual units. Therefore, any attack or issue on the end device does not reflect your hosted desktops.
To add to this, cloud providers ensure comprehensive security with TLS 1.3 and 256-bit encryption of data. Whenever you transmit data to and from the cloud, it is encrypted.
Then there’s Intrusion Detection and Prevention to consistently monitor the server and cloud instance. Any intrusion is detected and prevented automatically.
4. User Experience
By working as smoothly as this, the user experience naturally improves. Employees can work from any location and collaborate over data anytime they like.
This includes the following:
- BYOD support
- Remote working
Further, more than one employee can access the same data without interruption and sharing over the internet. The opened file is a real-time copy of the same file at all places. Therefore, changes reflect in real-time.
5. Scalability
Lastly, cloud desktops are scalable on-demand. Of course, on-premise desktops are also scalable, but this storage adds to your server, which is cost-intensive. On the cloud, you can scale on-demand without hefty charges. This storage and resources can be descaled on demand whenever necessary.
Cost Of Virtual Desktop Hosting
Virtual desktop hosting costs depend on the type of hosted desktops you purchase for your business. You can get one virtual desktop at USD 25 per user with 50GB storage and 4GB RAM for basic requirements and computing needs. However, it is possible to customize hosted desktops according to the needs of different categories of employees in your workplace.
Conclusion
Virtual desktop hosting is a type of VDI offered over the cloud server. This is a managed service that reduces your challenges. Understand business requirements, such as business-critical applications, resources, performance needs, number of thin clients, etc. Find the right cloud provider once you know the type of cloud desktops that will suit your requirements best.