Rationalizing Remote Working with Azure Virtual Desktop
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Rationalizing Remote Working SHOULD YOU STILL STICK TO YOUR VDI? WHITEPAPER | FEBRUARY 2021 Contact Us: [email protected] Executive Summary The increased demand of virtual working As organizations plan to move to a cloud based environments and acceleration in cloudification VDI, Azure Virtual Desktop emerges as the most has compelled enterprises to think about effective solution, leveraging cloudification deployment of a remote working solution. benefits of Microsoft Azure and low cost of However, it is indeed a critical decision to make, operations. as organizations not just need to scrutinize the available options but also ensure that the chosen Hexaware’s AMAZE® for Virtual Desktop is a option aligns with their core business objective comprehensive offering, providing an and contributes significantly to their vision for automated, cost effective and highly secure and the future. seamless migration to Azure Virtual Desktop. This white paper elaborately lays out the Being one of top 70 companies worldwide, to be differentiation between an on-premise Virtual certified with Advanced specialization for Azure Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and a Desktop as a Virtual Desktop, Hexaware has deep expertise Service (DaaS) solution that an organization may and differentiated offering, following the Cloud find useful while planning migration to Azure Adoption Framework, laid down by Microsoft. Virtual Desktop. It sheds light on how the Hexaware brings to you a 1-on-1 Value Discovery challenges of high capex, complexity, inflexibility Workshop to assist and plan your migration to and poor user experience can be tackled by Azure Virtual Desktop today! migrating to a cloud-hosted VDI/DaaS solution. Some of the key benefits of DaaS include: • Low deployment and licensing cost • Enhanced security as all data and applications are stored on cloud • Simple to use as the infrastructure management and maintenance is taken care by the provider • Agile and flexible deployment www.hexaware.com | © Hexaware Technologies. All rights reserved. 1 Introduction As the world moves to a virtual office environment, many organizations are seeking the possibility to let their employees work from remote locations. The deployment of a remote desktop solution thus becomes imperative and necessary. This is further accelerated by the cloudification journey that these organizations envision and thus the choice of virtual desktop solution is a critical decision to make. With many options available in the market, with multiple benefits and disadvantages, the organizations need to focus not only on their needs, but also on the future roadmap. In this paper, we take you through the differentiation between an on-premise Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and a Desktop as a Service (DaaS) solution and assist you with the planning and execution of your journey to Azure Virtual Desktop (formerly known as Windows Virtual Desktop). www.hexaware.com | © Hexaware Technologies. All rights reserved. 2 Challenges you may face with on-prem VDI/RDS Solutions: While Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Complexity Inflexibility seems like a promising alternative, it is too costly and complex for most companies to VDI solutions like Citrix and VDI deployments typically take a successfully implement on-premise solutions. VMWare Horizon have specific long time to set up and can be Although premise-based VDI does promise requirements for machine images, difficult to modify once established. operating systems and other software The scalability with a VDI deployment is to solve a lot of challenges presented by the required for different components of limited by the server resources. If you physical desktops, they do come with their desktop virtualization. VDI solutions also want to scale services up, the own set of challenges. Let’s delve a bit come with the responsibilities of requirement at your end is to first deeper into these challenges: managing the server, storage and purchase, install, and configure more networking. hardware. Huge Cost User Experience From purchasing the licences to A VDI solution, if physically the cost of upgrading servers and deployed near end users, provides data centers, VDI deployments require good user experience. But, if the data center significant capital expenses (CapEx) is too far away from the users, the user upfront. To this, the operating costs are experience gets impacted by high latency then added, which leads to higher and low bandwidth. Also, VDI solutions may expense for an overall on-premise VDI not be able to provide the OS or application solution. versions that users expect, which might lead to incompatibility and cause inconvenience to the end users. www.hexaware.com | © Hexaware Technologies. All rights reserved. 3 The answer lies on the cloud Move your virtual desktop and app environment to Azure to lower your infrastructure costs and reduce your hardware management burden VDI VDI Azure Responsibility On-Premises on Azure Virtual Desktop Desktop-as-a-service was identified as 1 of the 6 emerging trends Identity Gartner states: End user devices (mobile and PCs) According to Gartner Hype Cycle for 2020 Application Security Desktop-as-a-Service was identified as 1 of the 6 emerging trends. Gartner states Session host operating system “Desktop as a Service (DaaS) provides users with an on-demand, virtualized desktop experience delivered from a remotely hosted Deployment configuration location. It includes provisioning, patching and maintenance of the management plane Network controls and resources to host workloads. Organizations have long been interested in Virtualization Control Plane adopting virtual desktop infrastructure, but complexity and capital investment have Physical hosts made implementations difficult. COVID-19 highlighted the value and business continuity Physical network strength of DaaS in its ability to rapidly enable remote work where on-premises Physical datacenter options have stalled. The pandemic is likely to accelerate adoption of DaaS, and it may even perpetuate as a delivery architecture Customer Microsoft when employees return to the office.” www.hexaware.com | © Hexaware Technologies. All rights reserved. 4 Key benefits of choosing a Cloud-hosted VDI/DaaS solution Low deployment Beating the Agility and and licensing cost Security complexity elasticity DaaS deployments require almost DaaS is an attractive security option For a typical DaaS solution In typical DaaS deployments, it is no CapEx, which is replaced with because data and applications (example Azure Virtual Desktop), up and running is minimal time. an ongoing subscription fees. This reside in the cloud, rather than on the infrastructure management and This is because the infrastructure cost model makes it easier to vulnerable end-user devices. DaaS maintenance is taken care by the and platform are already dynamically scale operations and also helps alleviate other challenges provider and not the end user. This configured for you; you simply ensures that you are only paying associated with BYOD (Bring Your makes the user free from worrying need to define desktop settings for the resources you are actively Own Device) by enabling a about the hardware, monitoring, and users. Scaling with DaaS using. Also, most Azure Virtual consistent set of security controls upgrades, availability as well as services only involves requesting Desktop deployments leverage across mobile devices, regardless troubleshooting and support. additional desktop instances or Windows 10 Enterprise Virtual of operating system or hardware. user licenses. You don’t need to Desktops (multi-session) OS instead DaaS customers can also leverage purchase or spend time preparing of Server-class operating system. the security expertise of their new hardware. Additionally, OS Therefore, there is no need to pay service providers to improve their licensing is often built-in to service anything extra for the RDS license security and compliance posture. prices, meaning you can combine or anything similar since Windows or change the OS as needed. 10 Enterprise Virtual Desktop (EVD) is already included in the subscription. www.hexaware.com | © Hexaware Technologies. All rights reserved. 5 Comparative Analysis The following table does a comparative analysis of the features and capabilities available with various VDI/DaaS solutions in discussion: Component Physical Estate Traditional VDI Cloud based VDI Decentralized & Managed Centralized & Managed Centralized & Managed Infrastructure by customer/ SI partner by customer/ SI partner by Hexaware Non-elastic, complex workflows for Sizing Fixed from Design standpoint Scalable & elastic scale-up/out Implementation Times Very Long Long Short OSD platform managed VDI Managed by DaaS managed Management Platform by customer / SI partner customer/ SI partner by Hexaware Availability Local / Branch offices Local / Private clouds Global / Public clouds Updates Staggered & inconsistent updates Annual release channels Constant updates (as a service) Maintenance Managed by customer/ SI partner Managed by customer/ SI partner Managed by Hexaware Multiple Images per device model & Lesser golden images & Managed by Consolidated golden images & Image Managed by customer/ SI partner customer/ SI partner Managed by Hexaware/customer Licensing Annual perpetual Annual perpetual MontHly subscription Billing CapEx model CapEx model OpEx model www.hexaware.com | © Hexaware Technologies. All rights reserved. 6 Preferred Choice According to the 2020 survey by VDI Like