The health crisis transformed workplaces and changed how employees perform their duties. Before Covid-19, only some organizations allowed remote working. Today many companies have become more flexible and allow their staff to work remotely.
Hosted desktops, virtual desktops, or cloud-based desktops are used to give their staff access to productivity apps, emails, contacts, files, and folders. Virtual desktops are internet-based solutions that keep your data secure yet accessible from any device, time, and location.
This article will highlight things you need to know about hosted desktops and why you should switch now to improve efficiency and productivity. But first, let’s define what a hosted desktop is.
Definition of a Hosted Desktop
A Hosted Desktop is a virtual desktop that separates the desktop environment from the device you use to access it. That means you can assess your hosted desktop over a network using a device such as a smartphone, tablet, or laptop. The advantage of using a hosted desktop is that it makes you feel like you’re in a physical workstation because you can access powerful resources wherever you are and at any time.
Types of Hosted Desktop
There are three virtual or hosted desktop types that offer your users and team different virtual desktop experiences. They include:
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI): In this model, users get an operating system and necessary system resources like device drivers, memory, and more. A hypervisor or purpose-specific software powers it. A service provider can host the hosted machines, but you decide on the services, tools, and apps each user sees on their virtual desktop. That means the model is highly customizable to your needs.
Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS): The option allows you to rent cloud-based virtual machines. But it’s a less customizable model than VDI, and your employees get a uniform virtual desktop with a specific number of installed software products. In other words, DaaS doesn’t offer personalized settings.
Remote Desktop Services (RDS): This deployment model is similar to VDI. The only difference is that the Microsoft Windows Server operating system exclusively powers it. It also works through Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), thus limiting users to only Windows Server apps. Further, additional licenses are needed when you have more than two users on the hosted desktop.
How to Pick the Best Hosted Desktop Model
Picking the best desktop virtualization models for your business can take time and effort. The following 4 factors can help you pick the best model.
Budget
Choose the model that gives you maximum cost savings and better control over the infrastructure.
Security
Hosted desktop is secure, but organizations with overly strict data security policies should be careful when outsourcing desktop virtualization.
Location
Virtual desktop tends to respond slower when you use non-cloud solutions where the data center is located far away.
Control
Hosted desktop is a cloud-based solution that takes away a higher percentage of your business’s IT infrastructure control and gives it to the hosted desktop service provider.
Benefits of Hosted Desktop
There are several benefits of switching to a virtual desktop environment. Here are 5 benefits your businesses get for using a hosted desktop.
- Hosted desktops are more secure than physical desktop machines since the data is stored in a data center, not an individual machine.
- It’s a highly flexible model that doesn’t need expensive physical machines for each user.
- Virtual desktops are more cost-effective because they don’t need physical equipment or maintenance.
- Hosted desktops get their computing power from a robust data center.
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