Hosted Desktops are powerful virtual desktops delivered to businesses by third-party cloud service providers. The desktops are securely hosted on a cloud network. Hosted desktops are stored on cloud servers belonging to the provider.
Developed using the latest VDI technology, users can use hosted desktops on any device at their disposal. Internet-connected personal devices can access hosted desktops from any location. Hosted desktops are business-ready tools that have pre-installed applications as per specific business needs.
The desktops are tailor-made to meet changing business needs. They can cater to employees both in-office and off-premises.
What is Hosted Desktop?
Hosted desktops are available via a third-party managed service. DaaS, or Desktop as a Service, is a managed service provided by a third-party cloud service provider. The provider delivers cloud-hosted virtual desktops to corporate clients as per business requirements. Traditionally, DaaS has also been called Cloud VDI or Cloud Desktop.
As an end-to-end managed service, DaaS delivers hosted desktops with pre-installed applications. Therefore, hosted desktops are understood as a service rather than a product. Hosted desktops comprise a unique need for businesses looking to leverage an all-in-one digital solution that outsources all IT-related tasks, such as deployment, maintenance, support, and upgradation.
Workspaces around the world have steadily emerged. Thanks to hosted desktops, businesses have seen the greatest benefits of remote and hybrid working to significantly improve their ROI.
Recently, small and medium-sized enterprises have leveraged hosted desktops to reap maximum benefits in terms of greater security and reduced expenses. Hosted desktops have also helped these businesses go agile and promote flexibility to their employees., When hosted desktops were first introduced to the market, they amounted to little more than an additional venture.
Today, however, they have become one of the dominant trends in the market. As businesses adapt to the needs and potential of hybrid work, the popularity of hosted desktops as a preferred choice continues to grow.
The Rise of Hosted Desktops
Today, hosted desktops have become indispensable due to their multiple benefits. Hosted desktops need not be managed by in-house IT. Thus, businesses can do away with in-house IT teams altogether. It is not only cost-saving but also helps businesses cut back on IT. Hosted desktops are managed by third-party providers from deployment to regular updates. It ensures that businesses can leverage gold-standard IT services without the cost that comes with it.
The benefits of hosted desktops are increasingly clear for a rapidly evolving workspace. Hosted desktops are a much-needed digital solution that can transform a physical workplace into a digital hub of innovation and collaboration. With hosted desktops backed by the latest cloud technologies, businesses have found a cost-effective measure that can raise their return on investment.
Hosted desktops proved their worth by ensuring continued business operations during the pandemic and afterward. The business world quickly realized that hosted desktops were a business-critical tool.
Top Features of Hosted Desktops
Hosted Desktops offer many attractive features for businesses of all sizes and from every sector. These features have proven to enhance productivity goals by promoting efficiency and ease of doing business:
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Greater Security
Virtual desktops offer a solid alternative to physical desktops that are prone to theft and wear and tear. While physical security includes securely located isolated data centers under 24X7 CCTV surveillance, digital security entails SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), firewalls, antivirus software, Ransomware best practices, protection against DDoS (denial-of-service) attacks, MFA (multi-factor authentication), OS-hardening, OS-patching, IP restrictions, TLS 1.3 and 256-bit data encryption and continuous system monitoring. Whether in storage or transit, data protection is a must in every form of desktop virtualization.
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Zero IT Hassles
The provider hosts virtual desktops in a robust and multi-redundant cloud infrastructure. With the latter being responsible for the functionality and security of cloud servers and the virtual desktops made available, clients do not need to purchase or maintain expensive office infrastructure. Instead, the provider comes in with their own batch of IT experts for care and support of the virtual hosted desktops. For many businesses, outsourced IT facilitates the ability to do away with an office space altogether, thus enabling them to go all-remote.
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Reduced Overhead Costs
Most hosted desktop providers offer pay-as-you-go pricing, allowing businesses to take advantage of a flexible pricing model. By this model, customers pay only for the number of desktops allocated or system resources utilized. Thus, capital expenditure for expensive office infra is substituted by operational expenses in the form of monthly/annual bills. The plans are also scalable and move up or down in response to the needs of the hour, with providers further offering the benefit of switching between plans in real-time. Additionally, azure virtual desktop pricing, make it easy for businesses to realize firm-wide BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) goals, bringing down costs substantially. With nominal base offerings and flexible prices, virtual desktop hosting works wonderfully even on a very tight budget.
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Benefit of Scalability
Traditional desktops pose a challenge to enabling workplace flexibility. It is because implementing detailed physical infra for running an extended workspace can take a massive toll on the budget. In contrast, hosted desktops from reputed providers utilize fast servers and consistent networks to deliver reliable performance across any number of resource-intensive applications. These desktops also come with complete customization to accommodate changes in the number of users and applications. In line with the constant evolution in business needs, providers ensure that their hosted desktops are scalable and up to the task also good for vdi pricing
Conclusion
Hosted desktops are what modern businesses need. These can help businesses adopt tools and practices that are flexible, BYOD-friendly, and more cost-effective. In turn, these measures can increase profits and levels of employee satisfaction.
A mixed workforce consisting of in-office and remote employees needs DaaS-enabled hosted desktops to mitigate interruption of critical business practices. Faced with the challenges of remote working conditions brought on by the pandemic, businesses now believe that hosted desktops have become part of a business-critical process that kicks in significant savings and optimal workforce efficiency.
Small and medium enterprises, mainly, have adopted hosted desktops to make the most out of a globally distributed workforce. As we shall find out, hosted desktops have evolved as a secure means to ensure firm-wide productivity with better workload management.
