PC

Using physical PC desktops is the most common DaaS alternative. It’s easy and familiar but it comes with complications, inconveniences, and risks. PC storage might be ideal for personal laptops, but for larger organizations, this storage method is increasingly limiting.

Show-stoppers: Inefficient, inflexible, location-dependent, data-loss and security risks.

VPN

 Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) provide encrypted, remote internet access and storage. It’s sometimes used successfully for smaller organizations but can pose challenges, risks, and delays amidst large demand.

While VPNs are popular for securing data in transit, control access, and encryption are managed by VPN providers. This can loosen your data’s privacy/security. Additionally, if a VPN connection experiences outages, you cannot obtain or protect stored data.

With a VPN, you get encrypted cloud storage over a virtual network. However, you may lack access to file-sharing or collaboration controls while leaving your data vulnerable to exposure.

Show-stoppers: Latency, regulatory concerns, unpredictable performance, storage security risks.

On-Premises VDI

On-Premises Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (on-prem VDI), also known as self-assembled DaaS, is a traditional DaaS method. With on-prem VDI, the customer buys, assembles, hosts, and manages the vendor's cloud infrastructure. The vendor operates the selected infrastructure and provides updates.

With an on-prem VDI, you purchase the VDI infrastructure. Then, you’re responsible for hosting, maintaining, and often staffing management for everything on-site. Examples of on-prem VDI: Microsoft AVD, Amazon WorkSpaces

Show-stoppers: Overwhelming maintenance, consumes space, too much downtime, complexity, inflexibility, poor performance for remote users.

In-House VDI

In-House Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, sometimes referred to as a vendor-assembled DaaS, is a typical “DIY DaaS” solution. It gives customers control over their data and hardware, but there’s a caveat: Customers must have hard skills and in-depth VDI knowledge to manage it properly.

An in-house VDI can either be on-premises or cloud-based. In both scenarios, customers obtain the infrastructure from a vendor. The customer is then responsible for paying, integrating, maintaining, and troubleshooting the infrastructure.

With an in-house VDI, the vendor provides you with the VDI infrastructure. Then, you’re responsible for implementing and managing everything in-house. Example of in-house VDI: Nutanix Frame

Show-stoppers: Expensive hardware, frequent & costly updates, complex in-house management requirements, security risk exposure.

Managed DaaS

Managed Desktop as a Service, also called vendor-managed DaaS, is a cloud-based DaaS solution that works alongside IT teams to provide virtual desktops and management.

Example of a managed DaaS: XTIUM

Show-stoppers: Fear of losing control, User resistance, Compatibility with select legacy apps

Status Quo

The term “status quo” implies that a customer doesn’t make a decision and instead stays with their current storage system due to fear of change, user resistance or lack of bandwidth.

DaaS is an ideal solution for organizations that:  

• Employ teleworkers and /or a mobile workforce.  
• Want to reduce the overall costs of supporting their desktop infrastructure and software. 
• Have limited IT resources and need to achieve peak efficiency, and simplified management of employee desktops. 
• Want to extend the life of older PCs / laptops, and reduce the frequency of PC replacement cycles.  
• Have between 250 and 5,000 plus employees, with a distributed workforce. 
• Want to increase data security, and improve regulatory compliance.

Due to the explosion of SaaS, most workforces are now only using one or two legacy applications. Unfortunately, the DaaS provider industry is still trying to support these applications by giving everyone a virtual desktop. Simply put, that’s a waste of money and resources, but most importantly - what an annoying way to do your job!

XTIUM is breaking the DaaS industry mold. With XTIUM’s Virtual Desktop solution, we are able to publish legacy applications to end users, and offer them in a file based SSO fashion. This makes legacy applications look, act, and feel like a SaaS application to end users, whichever device they are using.

Provisioning traditional desktops is tedious and takes weeks vs. minutes with DaaS. Here’s an illustration of adding 10 new desktops to DaaS (the industry-wide practice) vs. 10 new XTIUM Virtual Desktop Solution users:  

Security and Compliance: DaaS mitigates risks and eliminates security concerns because the data resides in the datacenter and not on the device. Additionally, you can add an extra layer of security to your platform with XTIUM multi-factor authentication (MFA) and single sign-on (SSO) web portal, all while staying compliant. 

Mobility: DaaS enables IT to provide users with remote access to all company applications from anywhere, on any device. XTIUM’s DaaS solution enables IT to quickly deploy new users from anywhere, making it easier to manage users and increase productivity. 

Scalability and Agility: With XTIUM DaaS, it's easy for IT to scale your virtual desktops up or down, as needed, so you can quickly adapt to changing business requirements. 

Performance: DaaS enables organizations to deliver high performing applications to any end point. Real-time audio and video optimized DaaS enables team members to work together on projects from different locations in real-time, making collaboration easier and more efficient.

• Access company data and apps securely from any where 
• Simplify IT by offloading maintenance and administrative headaches 
• Work from any location with any type of end-point device 
• Reduce your security exposure 
• Reduce hardware and support costs 
• Replace siloed, legacy infrastructure with a consolidated solution that simplifies IT 
• Speed up user on-boarding and off-boarding 
• Eliminate the need to refresh hardware every few years 
• Eliminate the need for VPN 
• Ensure reliability with 99.999% uptime 
• Maximize business continuity with disaster recovery 
• Stay secure by keeping up with compliance and regulatory standards 

DaaS (Desktop as a Service):

• Cloud-based service.
• Managed by a third-party provider.
• Highly scalable and subscription-based.
• Suitable for organizations prioritizing simplicity and scalability.

VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure):

• On-premises or private cloud solution.
• Requires more in-house management.
• Upfront hardware costs.
• Provides more control and customization options.

In short, DaaS is a cloud-based, scalable, and managed service, while VDI offers more control but demands in-house management and infrastructure investment. 

• DaaS: Cloud-based, no physical hardware. 
• Traditional Desktops: Physical computers or laptops. 

• DaaS: No hardware maintenance required. 
• Traditional Desktops: Ongoing hardware maintenance needed. 

• DaaS: Highly scalable with virtual desktops. 
• Traditional Desktops: Scalability limited by physical hardware. 

• DaaS: Supports remote and flexible work. 
• Traditional Desktops: Tied to physical locations. 

• DaaS: Strong security measures from providers. 
• Traditional Desktops: Data security is organization's responsibility. 

• DaaS: Subscription-based. 
• Traditional Desktops: Upfront hardware and maintenance costs. 

• DaaS: Managed by providers. 
• Traditional Desktops: Organization's responsibility. 

In short, DaaS offers a cloud-based, scalable, and cost-effective desktop solution, while traditional desktops rely on physical hardware and involve higher maintenance and management efforts. 

Real-time audio and video conferencing for Virtual Desktops and Desktop as a Service (DaaS) refers to the ability to conduct live audio and video meetings, and collaboration sessions, within a virtual desktop or DaaS environment. Video conferencing solutions such as Microsoft Teams, Webex and Zoom, when deployed as part of a virtual desktop environment, often increase the network load, which compromises the performance and end-user experience, making remote working difficult. Traditional desktops and VDIs are not good at encoding and decoding parts of audio and video. This is why video conferencing on old virtual desktops is slow and laggy. 

XTIUM mitigates this issue by deploying vendor-supported configurations of their collaboration tools in a virtual environment, also known as real-time audio and video (RTAV) optimization, or media offloading.

Unlike traditional desktops and VDI, modern DaaS is smart enough to offload the media intensive parts of processing, that a virtual desktop isn't good at, to the client device. This simple change is how users get a Teams call, Zoom call, Webex call (or even stream March madness) with 100% clarity within their virtual desktop.

The level of effort is modest, but not groundbreaking. The implementation process goes through the following steps: 

• Extend a customers’ network into the data center solution 
• Build out DaaS tenant 
• Getting the image ready  
• Installing applications  
• Add licensing

Not only does DaaS offer a significant reduction in support costs—up to 60% for user bases leveraging VDI or DaaS compared to traditional client computing solutions—it also simplifies administrative tasks. By eliminating the need for device procurement and provisioning, DaaS simplifies organizational dynamics and cuts costs. 

These 7 comparison points can guide you in your process:

Ownership and Management

• Private Cloud: Owned and maintained by a single organization or a third-party service provider exclusively for that organization. Offers more control and customization options.
• Public Cloud: Owned and operated by a third-party provider, serving multiple organizations. Less control over infrastructure and services as it's shared among users.

Uptime

• Private Cloud: Typically offers 99.999% uptime.
• Public Cloud: Typically offers 99.9 or 99.99% uptime.

Customization and Flexibility

• Private Cloud: Provides greater customization options to tailor the infrastructure and services to specific organizational needs.
• Public Cloud: Offers limited customization options due to shared infrastructure and standardized services. 

Scalability

• Private Cloud: Scalability is possible but may be constrained by the available resources and infrastructure.
• Public Cloud: Highly scalable with the ability to rapidly increase or decrease resources based on demand.

Compliance and Regulations

• Private Cloud: Easier to comply with specific industry regulations and data privacy requirements as customization is feasible.
• Public Cloud: Compliance may be challenging, especially if the provider operates in multiple regions with varying regulations.

Security

• Private Cloud: Offers higher security levels due to dedicated resources and customized security measures.
• Public Cloud: Security measures are standardized and shared among multiple users, potentially posing higher security risks. 

Disaster Recovery

• Private Cloud: Allows for customized disaster recovery strategies and redundancy plans based on organizational needs.
• Public Cloud: Relies on the provider's disaster recovery and redundancy measures, which may have limitations in customization. 

XTIUM managed DaaS delivers the technology, support, management, and expertise needed to fully embrace hybrid work – in our cloud or on Azure. It enables IT to offload their day-to-day administrative headaches of managing a virtual desktop infrastructure to XTIUM so they can focus on more strategic tasks.

• Dramatically improve employee productivity by providing immediate access to all company apps from any location, on any type of device.
• Enable mobility and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategies. 
• Improve data, device, and application security because data never leaves the data center and stays safe in XTIUM cloud. 
• Better manageability due to centralized administration i.e. quickly upgrade applications across the network, push patches etc.
• Eradicate PC / laptop repair time and expense. 
• Extend the life of desktop infrastructure, workstations, and laptops. 
• Eliminates the need for additional staffing/support costs. 
• Reduce Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by transitioning away from expensive on-site servers, data centers and hardware. 

The following features and services are included depending on the type of DaaS offering you choose: 

• A full Windows 64 bit desktop experience 
• Access from any device
• RMM-Pro
• Real-time audio and video optimization
• DEX
• Compliance as a Service
• AI assisted features
• Automation driven Portal
• Dedicated CPU for each user 
• Dedicated memory for each user 
• Identity management with SSO/MFA 
• XTIUM security suite
• Platform, Image and Patch management
• Performance and Availability Monitoring
• Critical Infrastructure Backup
• Tailored Management Options
• Office 365 / Microsoft Licensing
• Disaster Recovery as a Service
• Virtual Data Center (VDC)
• An administrator portal for IT to centrally manage virtual desktops for better administrative control and security.  

Virtually any application your desktops run today will run on DaaS. We support BYOL (Bring-Your-Own-Licensing), Open-source licensing such as Open Office, or XTIUM can provide Microsoft Office applications via a monthly subscription model. 

We can also host line-of-business applications within our virtual private cloud infrastructure providing your business with all of the flexibility you have on physical desktops today.  

When thinking about Virtual Desktop FAQs, this is an important question. Your current administrator or third-party consultant is responsible for your Active Directory, users’ permissions and policies, desktop applications, and endpoint device support. XTIUM manages virtual desktop pools and licensing, stable and secure virtual infrastructure, network, and consumable resources (CPU, RAM, Disk).