Today, there is an increasing amount of diverse endpoint computing devices. These devices, paired with cloud computing and the overall consumerization of IT, has made desktop management even more important today. According to RnR Market Research, the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 27.35% between 2016 and 2020, largely due to the increasing adoption of BYOD. 451 Research analyst, John Abbot, also says that the growth is driven by the desire to reduce desktop management support. Let’s review Desktop as a Service and its benefits, as well as what the future might hold for this technology.
A DaaS Refresher
In recent years, end users have increasingly desired access to their data and applications without restriction to a specific location or device – and this isn’t only on the consumer level. Users want this type of access to their business data. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure has been around for awhile, but IT teams realized that managing on-site VDI was both complicated and costly. That’s when Desktop as a Service intervened and fulfilled the promise of offering virtual desktop environments on demand, through practically any Internet-capable device, without the high costs or hassles of managing your own infrastructure on-site. DaaS is truly a secure virtual desktop environment that provides users with access to their business data in any location, at any time, on any device. This is not a brand new concept, but like we’ve said before, it’s becoming increasingly important.
So what benefits does DaaS provide businesses and their employees besides mobility? Well, let’s start with the IT team. Administrators of the cloud solution receive the ability to automate the humdrum tasks that they’ve traditionally spent the majority of their time on. Additionally, this team views DaaS as a more managed and consistent way to provide these desktop environments to users while fitting these users’ wants and needs. Desktop as a Service essentially centralizes management, including desktop control, security, data control, backup and disaster recovery. This makes operations more efficient and greatly decreases overall spending.
And speaking of spending, DaaS is quite cost effective, as it allows businesses to avoid the capital expenses associated with on-premises desktop management. In the cloud, businesses essentially rent the resources from the provider and pay a subscription-based cost. This streamlines and decreases spending overall.
Scalability is another key benefit of DaaS. Businesses aren’t stuck with an unchangeable solution. Desktop as a Service allows organizations to provision new virtual desktops quickly and easily when they experience growth. As is typical with cloud solutions, DaaS makes it easy to scale resources based on constantly changing business demands.
And let’s not forget security. There have been endless debates over security in the cloud, but recent studies are showing that the majority of fears are unfounded. Clutch found that 64% of enterprises agreed that cloud infrastructure is more secure than legacy systems. Gartner predicts that through 2020, 95% of cloud security failures will be the customer’s fault. And a Thales e-Security study indicated that the majority of organizations plan on transferring sensitive data to the cloud in the next few years. Think about it this way: cloud providers, like RapidScale, must invest seriously in security if they intend to hold customer data. That’s the only option! Human error is the top reason that security problems arise, not cloud infrastructure. Layers and layers of cloud safeguards exist to protect data and eliminate threats. DaaS offered by a reliable provider like RapidScale should actually provide greater security controls than an organization could put in place itself.
Major Business Drivers
There are plenty of business drivers that lead to Desktop as a Service adoption today, but some of the top ones include:
- Users want to increase their mobility
- Remote workforces are on the rise
- The BYOD trend has entered the workplace
- IT wants to eliminate budget constraints, especially the costs of maintaining legacy infrastructure
The State of the Market
Desktop as a Service has become a global market. In a Citrix survey conducted at the end of 2015, 49% of organizations stated they plan to add a Desktop as a Service model in the next 12 months in order to grow their business. The same survey revealed that the strongest DaaS growth will be within the financial services, healthcare and manufacturing markets. This demonstrates that businesses requiring high levels of reliability and securely delivered applications and data are gravitating towards DaaS. Additionally, the largest market for DaaS is organizations with fewer than 100 end users – to date, SMBs have been the largest adopters of this technology largely because they don’t have the resources or expertise in-house.
It’s clear that we haven’t seen the end of Desktop as a Service. In fact, this may just be the beginning. The technology will continue to grow and evolve, and as more and more businesses adopt DaaS, we’ll see a huge transformation in how business is conducted. Visit RapidScale’s CloudDesktop page to learn about our market-leading Desktop as a Service solution and the benefits it offers businesses of all sizes.
