The post-pandemic hybrid work trend has breathed some excitement into Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS), a technology that has been chiefly niche until now. Unfortunately, the DaaS acronym is one you can run into in several software-as-a-service (SaaS) areas, like database-as-a-service or data-as-a-service. The desktop version is all about virtualizing your typical corporate PC. DaaS providers serve up desktops the same way cloud players like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure let their customers create virtual servers.
What is Desktop as a Service (DaaS)?
Using only software, DaaS customers can define how they want their desktops configured, the cloud services they want them to talk to, and the permissions or user roles needed to access them. That's not a trivial list of features, and some services are a lot harder to set up than others. Once those initial setup chores are done, though, your employees will be able to log in to their corporate desktops the same way they'd log into any other web service, like Gmail or a Salesforce CRM.
Upon login, they'll see a fully configured desktop, but running on a shared server in the DaaS provider's data center somewhere. Well, mostly run there. To improve performance across the internet, most DaaS providers set up some level of local caching on the hardware with which users login most often, but this is minimal. For all intents and purposes, you're using a desktop that's virtual and actually running somewhere else.
DaaS is based on older technology, called virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), versions of which were developed by several vendors more than ten years ago. Citrix was one of the pioneers, though much of its technology was absorbed into Microsoft's platform. VDI works the same as DaaS, except it's meant to run in a customer's data center. And while that customer's employees can access a VDI desktop over the internet via VPN, the technology is intended to be used on a local area network rather than the web.
Newfound Popularity
Because DaaS services are built to run over the internet, the technology looks like a perfect solution for hybrid workers. That's because IT professionals trying to run help desks during the pandemic found out they were facing an almost impossible task. When employees were in the office, they were using PCs that IT had purchased and configured to be easily managed on-site. They were also built to use on-site network resources, like printers, network storage, and especially a business-class internet gateway.
Flip that to a pandemic landscape and IT pros suddenly found themselves managing bandwidth problems on a network they didn't control (the interwebs) . They were also using network hardware (those legions of home wireless routers) that they knew nothing about.
And because so many businesses had already moved much of their software portfolios into the cloud as web services, like Gmail, Microsoft 365, or Salesforce to name just a few, many users moved from their company-purchased hardware to their home PCs. After all, their company notebook had a much smaller screen and usually less horsepower than the multi-display gamer rigs they had at home. All they needed were their user names, passwords, and a web browser to get to most or even all the software they used during work, so why not?
Easy for the user, difficult for the IT pro, since now they had no management agent and no visibility into what else was running on those PCs. That included not just other software, but potential security problems, like malware the home user didn't know was on their PC.
Combine all that, and most IT pros defaulted to making do without their usual management tools and solving one problem at a time, then going to bed and praying for the pandemic to end. That's happening slowly, but to most IT pros' dismay, the remote thing is sticking around in the form of hybrid work. Employees want the flexibility to work partially or even entirely from home permanently, and they want it in large numbers. One problem at a time isn't going to work in that scenario.
Enter DaaS.
With DaaS, an IT pro gets all the management advantages of a corporate PC, but they can serve it up whenever and wherever their users like. Employees can log in on their company-owned notebooks or their home PCs and get a full Windows experience. Or they can log in using a modified web browser interface on Apple macOS, iOS, or Google Android devices.
What makes IT happy is that now they control the PC again. Security and permissions, apps and services, patching and updates, it's all in their domain once more. In fact, for many it'll be even easier than before since now it's all in software, so management is easier to automate. If users want to use their home hardware, fine. IT doesn't care what else is running on that PC, since their DaaS desktop is separated from the hardware layer on the PC and protected in a data center from any malware the home hardware might have. They also don't care what other software users install on their personal hardware since they don't need to support it. IT just puts together a safelist of software that'll be included in their DaaS desktops and if a user calls about something else, well, sorry, that's not on our list.
This doesn't solve all of IT's hybrid work problems, but it does solve a big chunk of them. The home router and bandwidth issues can still be problematic, but at least IT can focus on those now and leave their desktop problems in the hands of the DaaS vendor.
DaaS Considerations
But before you jump willy nilly into a DaaS contract, know that there are several issues and differentiators you need to take into account. The first is cost.
One of the things that hurt VDI was that it turned out to be much more costly than businesses had expected. VDI was supposed to save money, but instead, it could actually cost more money in the data center because the server versus virtual desktop ratio wasn't as favorable as it looked on paper. That hurt, but the big issue was licensing.
Vendors like Microsoft sold VDI as a per-user license. Add to that a per-operating system (OS) Windows license, and then often a per-user software license, too, in the form of Office. So suddenly, the customer was hit with a whole other tier of per-user pricing above what they were paying in a dedicated hardware scenario.
DaaS has cost savings on its bill of benefits, too, and it can back that up, provided you're careful about how you buy. If your DaaS vendor is operating in the old VDI model, meaning they're only serving up the virtual desktop and not even the operating system, you're going to pay through the nose. If they at least offer the OS as part of their per-user-per-month charge, that's got a much better chance of being a cost saver.
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The newest DaaS offerings, like the recently announced Microsoft Windows 365 Cloud PC, actually offer bundles that include the DaaS virtual desktop, the OS, and a Microsoft 365 app bundle all rolled into one monthly charge. Other vendors will follow suit, either with their own Microsoft 365 bundles or competing productivity suites, like Google Workspace or Zoho Docs. Do the math on that and factor in how much it'll help you with hybrid work and then decide.
Your last cost consideration is that per-user-per-month charge. Most DaaS vendors use that format, but many also tack on a per-minute charge. So you're paying $X per person per month, and then X cents per minute calculated by how long each of those users actually stays logged into their desktop. You'll hear DaaS vendors say that this will save you money since you'll be able to spin desktops up and down depending on when your users need them, but it's still an extra cost above and beyond the per-user price. You'll need to come up with at least an average amount of time you expect each employee to be on their virtual desktops each month and factor that into your cost estimate.
Next, think about what you expect a “managed” service to do. If you're looking to emulate a Slack experience, for example, then what you want is the ability to send the provider a list of user names so they can set up accounts and then work with a product rep to configure what you want those desktops to do. After that, you want your users to log into their desktop and then wash your hands of any other management tasks outside of maybe seeing an all-up usage dashboard once a month.
Those services exist, but (a) they'll probably cost more, and (b) they might be limited in what they can do on the back-end. That refers to things like integrating the desktops with your Active Directory identity management and group policies, for example.
The other side of the coin is vendors that offer loads of back-end options but expect you to set up and manage them. Those are players like Amazon WorkSpaces and Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop. Both of those platforms have loads of back-end integration options with their other cloud services, and they'll undoubtedly sell them to you while boosting those per-user-per-month charges. But setting up those complex services will be on you, or you'll be paying a value-add partner to help. Then again, you'll get total back-end flexibility, which might make the added costs worthwhile.
That all sounds like it'll be problematic, especially for smaller businesses, but the math will check out for many companies. In particular, it'll work for those smaller businesses because they'll have a lower user count and more straightforward back-end requirements. But even large companies see DaaS' advantages. For example, NEC recently announced it was moving all 110,000 of its employee desktops to the Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop platform for additional performance and hybrid work considerations.
If a DaaS product sounds like it's a good fit for your new everyday needs, we've compiled a list of the top players in the DaaS market below.
Amazon WorkSpaces is one of the most mature DaaS options you've got since the company debuted it almost a decade ago. The service is part of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and so has a wide variety of other cloud services you can integrate with your DaaS desktops, like analytics, backup, and data security to name only very few. But as with all things AWS, setting up and deploying WorkSpaces to more than one user isn't simple.
Start with the price. While its per-user per-month starting price is certainly attractive, that is solely for the virtual machine (VM) and doesn't include costs for the operating system, management tools, and storage. WorkSpaces supports Microsoft Windows clients as well as Linux, but you'll need per-user licenses to use them. Compute, storage, and network power is also variable so the more muscle your VMs have, the more you'll pay for them, and then there's a per-minute charge in addition to the monthly cost. None of that is uncommon in the DaaS arena, but it does mean that you'll need to work with Amazon to configure exactly the kinds of virtual desktops you'll need and the resources you want them to have before you'll get a reasonably accurate per month cost.
Managing and deploying your desktops will also have you jumping through a few hoops. WorkSpaces is compatible with Microsoft Azure Active Directory both for identity management and group policies, and you can roll out software this way, too, but you'll need additional Microsoft tools to do so. For an all-Amazon solution, you'll need to get an Amazon WorkSpaces Application Manager account. This is an additional cost on top of the desktop virtual machines, but it provides the most complete picture of your WorkSpaces desktops and provides tools for software deployment, patching, upgrades, and other management tasks.
The key difference here is that, again, as with most things AWS, WorkSpaces isn't actually a managed service on its own. AWS is simply managing the virtual infrastructure that powers your desktops. Configuring, deploying, and managing your DaaS infrastructure is then left up to you. If you want all that covered as part of a managed DaaS account, you'll need to work with one of Amazon's partners, like Ingram Cloud. If you go that route, however, you can expect the per-VM per-month charge to go up.
On the plus side, however, is that WorkSpaces will let your users access their DaaS desktops using a wide variety of devices, including both Apple macOS and Microsoft Windows PCs, as well as Google Chromebooks, iPads, and, of course, Amazon's own Fire tablet. Other Google Android devices will work, too, but you'll want to test those before informing your users. There's also a web browser-only option that'll work on Chrome and Firefox, though not Microsoft's Edge.
Citrix was one of the early pioneers of remote desktop technology, and it's had several of those offerings available for years. But it didn't roll out the current version of Citrix Managed Desktops (CMD) until 2019. What's different from its other offerings, as well as the DaaS platforms from infrastructure-only vendors, like Amazon, is that CMD truly is a managed service. Everything is handled by Citrix so all you need to do is work with Citrix to provision the kinds of VMs you'll need and the users you'll want to have access to them.
On the back-end, the long-standing, love-hate relationship Microsoft has with Citrix is set to “love” as far as CMD is concerned. Citrix delivers CMD using Microsoft's Virtual Desktop technology (which is largely based on its own technology anyway) and distributes it via Microsoft Azure. As you might expect, that means CMD leans heavily towards Windows as far as the desktop operating system, but as of last year, Linux is also an option, though you'll still have some trouble using Active Directory with Linux desktop instances.
Citrix has several tiers of CMD, but the Premium Plus tier has all the bells and whistles, including full management of all your desktop instances, any Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) apps you need, as well as data protection, endpoint security, and Microsoft Office productivity tools (license cost is extra here). Citrix handles deployment, software rollout, and day-to-day desktop delivery, though you'll still need to be involved with creating your virtual desktop images, object- and role-based access policies, and similar settings that are unique to your organization.
CMD's lower pricing tiers start at $8 per user per month and vary around the kinds of instances you can deploy and how they get managed. There are also options around how users can access their desktops as well as the different experiences those users will have, like what kinds of devices they can use and the level of performance they can expect.
Cloudalize is something of a specialist in DaaS delivery. The company is headquartered in Europe and was started to deliver DaaS specifically to customers that need exceptional compute performance, notably technical users (like those testing AI learning models, for example) or creative professionals with CPU-heavy needs (like 3D designers, for instance). The company provides that performance by supplying its VM compute power using NVIDIA GPUs, which it claims allow it to deliver up to 1,000 times the power of devices powered by standard desktop CPUs.
Cloudalize says it manages all aspects of its DaaS delivery privately, meaning that not only does it use its own data centers for infrastructure (located in both Europe and the US), it also uses its own virtualization technology. There is an on-premises version available, but the Cloudalize Cloud offering is an entirely managed service, unlike infrastructure-only services, like Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop.
Users can access their Cloudalize desktops via a browser experience on Apple macOS and Microsoft Windows PCs as well as Apple iOS and Google Android devices. The company is also working to deliver all-mobile solutions, meaning you'll be able to access your Cloudalize instance not only using broadband but also 4G and 5G mobile networks. However, if you really need the extra compute power Cloudalize is selling, you'll want to test mobile network performance before deploying it en masse.
Cloudalize is what most buyers envision when they think of a DaaS implementation, namely a service they configure with the vendor and then simply log into when they need it. No need for day-to-day management unless it's with your own custom apps or identity services. The only question marks are whether you need the extra compute power, and whether Cloudalize's few data centers (relative to players like Amazon or Microsoft) can deliver the performance you'll need to your geographic location.
Dizzion Managed DaaS is another virtual desktop provider that says it uses NVIDIA GPUs to power its desktops instead of standard virtual CPUs. It also works off the IBM Cloud rather than AWS or Microsoft Azure. The IBM connection is fairly tight since IBM actually has Dizzion on its website as its primary DaaS offering and you can buy Dizzion via an IBM sales rep.
Dizzion also provides the classic level of managed service, meaning it's entirely variable depending on what you need. If you simply want to sign up, configure your images, assign users, and then have them log into the service, Dizzion can handle that and manage everything else for you from data protection down to provisioning the IBM Cloud infrastructure. But if you need all or just pieces of those management chores kept in-house, the service can adjust to that, too.
If you decide to do the initial provisioning yourself, IBM and Dizzion have a wizard-based setup that'll walk you through provisioning a basic desktop instance. However, you'll still need some knowledge of how IBM Cloud handles VM creation, so working with either vendor is probably easier at the outset.
On paper, this is a very similar offering to Cloudalize, not just because of the GPU foundation, but also due to the end-to-end, turnkey nature of the platform. However, where Cloudalize has relatively few data centers in Europe and the US, IBM Cloud has more than 40 data centers globally, and Dizzion can take advantage of any of them. That means better performance for any business with widely distributed employees since their desktop instances should be served up from a facility relatively close to where they live.
Originally called Windows Virtual Desktop, Microsoft changed the name to Azure Virtual Desktop in 2020. Recently, Microsoft announced its Windows 365 Cloud PC offering, which combines not only the Azure back-end but Microsoft 365 productivity tools with a DaaS front-end. The company will continue selling Azure Virtual Desktop, however, as that platform is mature and intended to sell other Azure services, not necessarily Microsoft 365.
The service lets customers provision Windows 10 virtual desktop instances with the option to add Microsoft 365 Business Premium as well as whatever third-party SaaS apps you might need. The push, however, will be for additional Azure tools, especially around analytics and software development. You can even opt for Windows 7 instances, available for the next two years complete with Extended Security updates at no charge. What happens after two years is uncertain, but a forced upgrade seems likely.
While the basic pricing looks attractive, that's only the first step in a rather long pricing process. Just like with Amazon WorkSpaces, costs will change depending on the level of service you select, the data center locations from where the instance is served, the kind of Windows 10 license you select, as well as the Microsoft 365 tier you want. After that come all the Azure service options that cover data protection, Azure Active Directory user and group policy management, and even instance licensing options if you'd rather use Microsoft's Remote Desktop Services (RDS) technology. With all those options, you'd be very well advised to work with a Microsoft sales rep until you've got an exact price quote for not only your base instance creation costs but also your per-minute utilization charges, too.
Finally, again like AWS, what Azure means by “managed service” is just providing all the physical and virtual infrastructure that powers Azure Virtual Desktop. There are several powerful management dashboards available to manage your virtual desktop pool once you've set it up, but not only do some cost extra, you'll need to use those tools yourself, meaning you're on the hook for day-to-day virtual desktop management. If your users need help, they're calling you, not Microsoft. If you want a more end-to-end managed service, you'll need to work with one of Microsoft's value-add partners, like Atmosera.
Microsoft Windows 365 Cloud PC
Even though it already had the Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) shown above, Microsoft says the pandemic proved the need for a second DaaS platform designed to be as easy as possible for small businesses and even individual professionals. The fact that Microsoft had to suspend trial accounts because initial demand skyrocketed unexpectedly seems to have proven that theory correct.
Microsoft has done a solid job building an end-to-end DaaS service that's definitely easier to use than AVD, both for users and IT managers, though a little less flexible on the back end. That's not a big loss for smaller companies, however, and the benefits are compelling. For one, there's internet performance. Because Windows 365 is hosted in a high-performance data center, users are running their internet sessions there. That means they're using the data center's internet connection not their own and such a connection is fast even when it's shared with other users. The company has demonstrated some impressive numbers, including 10Gbps for downloads and 4Gbps for uploads.
Just like with most other DaaS services, Cloud PC will behave exactly as a physical PC would. Your users will get a particular virtual PC that belongs solely to them and they can customize it just as they could a physical Windows PC. An important advantage, though, is that they can get to this desktop using any device — a PC, a native Apple app for iPad users, and even a smartphone or a browser interface.
The Business version is meant for those usually ordering individual PCs from Amazon, configuring them in-house, and then plugging them into a small business network. No Azure or Intune license is required, just subscribe via Microsoft 365, go through the guided setup process, and you've got a new PC at a per-monthly rate. This version is designed for 300 users or less. You're not capped there, but if your user count grows beyond this, you're probably better off looking at the features in Enterprise.
Most businesses will choose Enterprise because they need something that connects to both the cloud and some on-premises resources, too, such as app and file servers or even local printers. That's where you'll need an Azure Active Directory account with Azure AD Hybrid Join. This lets you keep your on-prem domain controller while sharing information with your cloud-based Azure AD service. This isn't trivial work, but Microsoft-savvy IT professionals should find the guided setup experience fairly easy to follow.
Every IT professional is familiar with the VMware name mainly due to its highly popular vSphere virtualization hypervisor, but also because of other IT products, such Workspace One Access, our Editors' Choice winner in identity management systems.
Because VMware is one of the leaders in the virtualization space, it makes sense the company would have a DaaS offering though it didn't launch Horizon Cloud until 2019. The service lives up to the company's reputation. For one thing, there's total deployment flexibility. You can run Horizon Cloud virtual desktops on-premises and in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) or, as of August 2021, Microsoft Azure. VMware plans to roll Horizon Cloud out to other public cloud providers in the future.
Horizon has all the VM features IT professionals are looking for, including the ability to move and connect VMs across multiple clouds, full customization of your VM images and applications, as well as health and end-to-end lifecycle management for every VM. These tools as well as VMware's own security and performance features are all optimized to work with the corresponding features of the underlying public, which is why rolling out support for different clouds takes VMware some time. The company also advertises scalability and excellent uptime, though these are probably more dependent on the public cloud provider than VMware's service.
Pricing is a sticking point, as VMware offers no detailed numbers on its website. This means you'll need to discuss pricing with a VMware representative, and cost will likely depend on the number of machine images, the depth of customization, the number of users, and potentially the amount of time each user spends on the VM. And one thing you can't do is buy your Windows 10 desktop license through VMware, so you'll need to talk to Microsoft for those and that will add cost to the overall solution. However, Horizon Cloud also supports Apple macOS and Linux as well as the major mobile OS flavors, so you've got some options there.
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