Desktop as a Service: Why One Company Established a Virtual

1. Desktop as a Service: Why One Company Established a Virtual Desktop and Application Environment

2. Desktop as a Service • Desktop as a Service provides a meaningful solution for desktop and application environments. • It changes the whole dynamic between workers and their traditional, stationary computers. • Users no longer need to go to the office to access company data and resources. • Instead, Desktop as a Service increases user mobility and allows the desktop to go with the user. • The desktop becomes a virtual device that can be accessed securely anytime and anywhere from a tablet, laptop, netbook, thin client, smartphone and more.

3. The Challenges for One Company • Today, managing desktop and application environments to keep pace with growth has become difficult for many companies. • One organization in particular found virtualizing these environments created a more agile IT operation. • For example, an independent natural food store chain operates over 150 stores, three warehouses and a corporate office in the United States. • With an internal IT staff of only 16, desktop management and deployment became geographically challenging, inconsistent and cumbersome for the company. • The organization knew they needed to establish a Desktop as a Service environment that would not only reduce user downtime, but also scale easily in response to rapid growth and adapt to business demands. • In addition, application management on a corporate level was anything but seamless between internal and external end users. • The company needed to help streamline the process of managing and deploying current and future applications. Desktop as a Service

4. Why Desktop as a Service Made Sense • After careful analysis, the natural food store chain decided to outsource the management and hosting of their desktop and application environments. • They selected a vendor with similar values, work ethic and a strong presence in the technology sector. • The result was a strategic approach to developing and implementing an innovative and highly efficient virtual desktop and application environment. • Desktop as a Service, sometimes referred to as “DaaS,” involves the process of presenting a user desktop from inside the data center. • The desktop workload is moved away from the local computing device and placed in the cloud infrastructure. • The user data, profiles and computing load remain secure within the vendor’s cloud server environment. • By virtualizing their existing desktop and application environments, the company was able to foster a more agile IT environment. Desktop as a Service

5. Why Desktop as a Service Made Sense • With Desktop as a Service, the natural food store chain could now provide near instant provisioning of new users and devices. • Failed workstations at remote sites could now be remedied by simply unboxing a new device and returning the failed device to the corporate office for replacement. • Desktop as a Service also allows for a seamless presentation between internal and external operation of applications. • By centralizing the tools for desktop management and increasing the ease of rolling out new applications, the natural food store chain’s employees and vendors experienced a quicker on-boarding process. • For example, on-boarding of newly acquired companies became as simple as pointing the user to a web site. • The IT staff is now able to concentrate on more critical and strategic projects. • Remote users are more efficiently supported and the excessive levels of downtime have become a thing of the past. Desktop as a Service

6. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Chuck Vermillion is CEO and founder of OneNeck IT Services, a leading provider of hosted application management and managed services since 1997. For more information about Desktop as a Service, visit http://www.oneneck.com/Solutions.aspx today.