Top 6 reasons to use a Remote Desktop and RemoteApps Tough Math for Desktop TCO In their fight to reduce IT budgets, small- and medium-sized businesses have to answer one tough question: how do we reduce IT expenses with the lowest impact on our employees productivity? The success of a company highly relies on its employees ability to deliver services to customers. Desktops and applications eat up a large part of a business s IT budget. The costs related to their purchase and maintenance can get very high. Gartner s Desktop TCO 2013 Report indicates companies can easily spend up to $1,151 a year per desktop on hardware, software and facilities. When all costs related to desktop usage are added up, the overall expenditure can sometimes reach as high as $5,592. The costs decrease with a higher level of management of the desktop environment. The high number of applications installed locally on PCs contributes to increase the TCO, largely because of the license costs.
Desktop Total Cost of Ownership Report Unmanaged Somewhat Managed Moderately Managed Locked, Well-Managed Hardware $223 $222 $221 $218 Hardware Maintenance 33 34 34 35 Software 632 606 579 526 Software Maintenance 126 121 116 105 IT Software 70 75 79 88 Data Center Allocation - 0 0 0 Electricity/Heating/Cooling 67 54 47 23 Hardware, Software and Facilities $1 151 $1 112 $1 077 $997 Tier 1 147 121 115 102 Tier 2 158 135 111 63 Tier 3 68 67 62 52 Security 68 62 56 44 Desktop Management 105 164 156 141 IT Operations $546 $549 $500 $402 Administration 50 48 46 42 Management 40 40 40 40 User Training 12 13 14 15 IT Training 13 13 13 13 Disposal 30 30 30 30 Administration $145 $145 $143 $140 Training $467 $458 $448 $429 Fixing 3 081 2 591 2 101 1 121 Downtime 203 162 120 36 End-User Costs $3 751 $3 211 $2 669 $1 587 Hardware and Software $1 151 $1 112 $1 077 $997 IT Operations Labor 546 549 500 402 Administration Labor 145 145 143 140 Direct Costs $1 841 $1 805 $1 720 $1 539 End-User Costs $3 751 $3 211 $2 669 $1 587 TCO $5 592 $5 016 $4 390 $3 126 Source: Gartner (March 2013)
Desktop Environment Management Desktop and application management has its share of issues. In an ideal world, the desktop hardware lifecycle is estimated at 6 years. In reality, desktops may break down earlier, be stolen, or become unsuitable for work. Technology constantly evolves and applications are regularly updated, pushing the minimal requirements to run them even further. You easily end up in a situation where the high-standard computers you bought two years ago cannot do the job any more, unless they are upgraded at a high cost. This brings up another question: how do we make the existing assets work for a longer time? To better manage their desktop environment, organizations have a wide range of solutions they can deploy on-premises: on-demand application provisioning, PC standardization with pre-built image deployment, configuration management, software metering, virtual desktop infrastructure, and more. But all these imply some administrative overhead the businesses cannot always afford. Leaving the Ground for the Cloud Cloud services have come as a solution for different scenarios, bringing flexibility, scalability, high availability, and elasticity to IT services that were somewhat rigid. Services can be deployed when you want, as you want, reduced or upgraded with a low impact on the budget. No upfront costs are necessary, and there is no yearly contract that binds you to the provider: all services are billed monthly from the day you start using them. Infrastructure as a Service is a cloud service that makes it possible to provide machines that work as well as hardware servers or even better. This is done within minutes using virtualization. These virtual machines or cloud servers are hosted at a provider s datacenter and remotely accessible through the Internet, using terminal clients or a command line. The power of the cloud lies in its scalability and simplicity: resources can be scaled up or down in minutes through the provider s control panel. While cloud servers are used to host web sites or any server applications, the technology can be leveraged to respond to the desktop management concern. For instance, Windows Server 2012 R2 operating system s Remote Desktop Services enable the use of virtualized application, data and session-based desktops. This technology was formerly known as Terminal Services and is part of a greater set of virtualization technologies offered by Microsoft. With a set of cloud servers running Windows Server 2012 R2, you can achieve your own virtual desktop infrastructure from the cloud. The key benefit of Remote Desktop Services is that there s only one machine to manage for multiple users to access locally or remotely. The remote aspect is important because everyone needs remote access today. There s no reason to buy workstations that just sit in the office and do one thing. That s just a waste of money. For the cost of three or four workstations, you can have a server. Andrew Abrams, Executive Director and Co-founder of Technology In A Box
The Power of Remote Desktop Services Remote Desktop Services (RDS) rely on Windows Server to host applications, data or virtual desktops in a server and make them remotely accessible from any end-user device (computer, tablet, or smartphone). Remote Desktop and RemoteApp are two solutions based on RDS. In a public cloud configuration, the server is located at the provider s datacenter and the virtualized services can be accessed through the Internet. A reliable Internet connection is all that s necessary to run in this configuration. No desktop upgrade is required. Remote Desktop: With Remote Desktop, users can remotely open a session on a Windows server using a client software or a web browser like Internet Explorer. From that session, they can run any application installed on the computer. At logon, each user is appended a dedicated virtual hard drive for their session, where they can store files. The Remote Desktop client software is available for Windows, Mac OS X, ios, and Android. RemoteApps The principle is similar for RemoteApps. Instead of accessing a whole desktop session, the users will be able to start an individual RemoteApp program using the same Remote Desktop client software or a web browser. The program will be displayed as if it was installed on the user s PC, Mac, tablet or smartphone, although it runs on the server. In both cases, nothing is processed on the end-user device. It acts as a simple input/output device (monitor, keyboard and mouse). The Internet bandwidth used by RDS is insignificant because the only traffic generated is to transfer keystrokes, mouse movements and monitor display. The applications and data run on the server, so the performance relies on the scalable processing capabilities of the cloud.
Most Common Use Cases 1. You have applications requiring a client software to be installed on each user s desktop on-premises, like QuickBooks or Adobe InDesign. In a setup with RDS, the QuickBooks or Adobe InDesign application is installed and published on a server. Users execute the application directly from the server, where the processing is carried out. Data stays on the server and the work is never lost if the connection is broken. 2. You have plans for PC refresh. Instead of buying new hardware, you can invest in a virtual desktop infrastructure with RDS. RDS make it easier to centrally manage and support users desktops. Plus, you have more control over app deployment, user access and other management tasks. 3. In the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) model where worker-owned devices are being brought into the organization, some users prefer personal devices over corporate-provided ones. Remote desktop can provide an alternative path to accessing applications while relieving IT staffers from having to support the endpoints themselves. Subsidizing partial costs for users who choose to bring their own devices could reduce the capital expense of user laptops and desktops. Top 6 reasons to use a Remote Desktop and RemoteApps 1. Scale quickly to meet changing business needs Remote Desktop and RemoteApps are a cost-effective solution for a fluctuating workforce or fast-changing business requirements. You can quickly ramp up and provide seasonal workers, vendors, or large groups of new employees access to company applications without paying for new servers and expensive on-premises infrastructure then scale down again when business needs change. 2. Safeguard sensitive corporate applications RDS provide a protected-applications delivery solution: applications are never sent to or stored on employee devices, but are centralized on a trusted and reliable platform. Users access the company applications securely through Remote Desktop Protocol 3. Streamline IT Services RDS simplify desktop and applications setup and maintenance requirements. To start, system administrators can quickly give users access to applications by installing and configuring them one time on a server with RDS. Subsequent software updates only need to be performed on one computer as well. 4. Better and more cost-effective remote access RDS allow application users to work anywhere: in the office, on the road, from a satellite office, or from home. Alternative remote access services offer similar capabilities, but users often find them to be slow and constraining. Compared to this, RDS are much faster so your applications performance is optimized even in low bandwidth scenarios. Also, RDS provide remote access to multiple employees using one shared server. This is not possible with a simple workstation accessed remotely, as only one user can log at a time.
5. Desktop hardware has a longer lifespan SMBs are looking to make the most of their IT budget. By using RDS, organizations can extend the lifecycle of their IT assets. Because all the processing occurs at the server end, the desktops are essentially acting as terminals and can be used for a longer time. Likewise, Remote Desktop and RemoteApps may allow organizations to purchase lowerend desktop hardware than they otherwise would, resulting in cost savings. 6. Disaster recovery made easy Because all your files are safe on a remote location, there is no fear of losing data in case a computer crashes or a disaster happens. Safety is the main reason why professionals opt for remote desktop solutions. Your cloud service provider s SOC2 Type II, ISO 27001 or other relevant certifications guarantee your data is secure. How to get started with Remote Desktop Services We help you achieve more for your money than well-known providers, because our IaaS platform is proven to offer more performance compared to other competitors environments. You can deploy Remote Desktop and RemoteApp solutions confidently on our servers. Setting up Remote Desktop Services: We provide an intuitive step-by-step guide to set up Windows Server s Remote Desktop Services on our platform. For those who want expert help, our cloud support can provide assistance. Our support team is available 24/7/365, by phone, email or chat. If your business has an IT department or if you do business with a Managed Service Provider, they usually already have the necessary experience and skills to implement RDS. Try Virtualization to Save More Money Rather than purchasing on-premises servers that have a refresh cycle of 3 to 5 years or need frequent maintenance, savvy organizations are deploying cloud servers to fulfill their various needs. When deciding whether or not to use RDS, keep in mind that it s possible the cloud servers needed for RDS could also be leveraged for other applications! It may even be enough to support much, if not all, of your business applications. Next Steps Building Remote Desktop and RemoteApp with your Windows Server 2012 R2 servers on our platform is easy. Before getting started, you will need to consider a few things, such as: Designing an architecture for your RDS deployment Scoping and sizing using industry guidelines Selecting your service provider (That s us!) To learn more about best practices and how to deploy Remote Desktop Services, please contact us: www.icsdata.com