If there is any good that will come out of this pandemic when we look back, one thing in the “silver-lining” column will be that businesses were forced to rethink the tools and infrastructure of their IT landscapes. Granted, trends were already in motion toward the adoption of cloud-based (versus traditional on-premises) solutions and more flexible remote-work policies. Clearly, the crisis has shifted that evolution into high gear. While cloud conferencing services, online electronic file sync/share sites, as well as digital workflow and collaboration solutions are obvious winners, a more niche cloud offering is finding itself in the spotlight: Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS).
DaaS takes the concept of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) one step further. Instead of using the Internet to access a single application that is running on a server in a remote data center, users access their entire desktop environments. The idea is like the Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), where the user logs into a remote PC (be it a physical workstation or virtual desktop environment running on a server) via an Internet connection. But instead of residing on an office-based server that a local IT person must maintain, DaaS moves the whole infrastructure to the cloud.
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| With DaaS, this cumbersome, costly lifecycle of traditional desktop PCs becomes a burden of the past. |
DaaS has numerous advantages over traditional on-prem PC setups. For IT, the process of provisioning, securing, maintaining, and repairing physical computers goes away (except for ensuring that users have a reliable Internet-access device, such as a Chromebook). End users get the flexibility of being able to access their “desktop” PC from anywhere. And since the computing horsepower lives in the cloud, they can even launch high-end applications such as computer-aided design (CAD) packages that are too much for a typical desktop or laptop PC.
The fact that these advantages play directly into what IT departments need during (and following) this pandemic—where remote work has and will be the norm—has been a boon to DaaS providers, such as dinCloud. The company provides its services through the direct and dealer channels, including many office-equipment dealers that have ventured into the IT services space (such as Pacific Office Automation). dinCloud and other DaaS providers such as Citrix, Cloudalize, and Evolve IP report that demand has surged since the COVID-19 crisis forced IT personnel to find creative ways to enable employees to work remotely. What’s more, the DaaS approach will prove a valuable investment even after employees return since it can standardize how all employees—remote, on-premises, or a those following a hybrid model—are provisioned with desktop-PC resources.
