"8 Reasons to Outsource Your Desktop in the Cloud"

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"The Independence IT team has extensive experience managing IT infrastructures. From providing top-quality user support to tackling the most complex technical issues, our team is nothing less than obsessed with meeting our clients' needs. "
Source: Independence IT

Resources Related to 8 Reasons to Outsource Your Desktop in the Cloud:

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8 Reasons to Outsource Your Desktop in the Cloud

INTRODUCTION

To remain competitive in today's business environment, organizations must focus on finding new ways to be better and faster than their competition. To accomplish this, organizations have turned to technology to help run their operations more efficiently and effectively. As information technology has become increasingly more critical to organizations, it has also become more complicated, more costly and much more time-intensive to manage. Unfortunately, as a result, many businesses are spending more time focusing on managing their IT infrastructure than on their core business.

With organizations looking for new ways to cut costs and increase productivity, cloud computing has become a popular trend. The most common form of cloud computing is for vendors to offer their software via the Internet, also known as "Software-as-a-Service" or "SaaS". Users are able to access the software and their data online for the length of their contract, paying just a subscription fee. There is no software to purchase and no upgrades to be made.

The SaaS model has many benefits to the business community that can also be translated to desktop management. A concept that has been around for more than a decade, but is just now gaining popularity because of the user acceptance of SaaS is "Desktop-as-a-Service" or "DaaS".

Like SaaS, a hosted desktop allows users to access their desktops online through a subscription service. The service provider hosts all of its clients' applications on servers at a remote data center and the end users access the software and data via a simple Internet connection. The hosting provider purchases and maintains the necessary technologies and is responsible for implementing the necessary controls. They handle the day-to-day management, information security, data backup and recovery of the client's applications and data and the client is able to quickly, efficiently and affordably create a virtual IT department.

Gartner has predicted that the worldwide Hosted Virtual Desktop (HVD) market will accelerate through 2013 to reach 49 million units, up from 500,000+ units in 2009. "DaaS - the manage once, deliver anywhere approach - offers operational scalability and a secure working environment on all devices. The market shift towards desktop virtualization is driven by organizations looking to lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and to increase overall IT effectiveness," explained Diptarup Chakraborti, principal research analyst for Gartner.

Money and effectiveness are two important reasons you should seriously consider off-loading your IT burden to a team of experts by moving to the desktop-in-a-cloud concept. Below we discuss eight reasons why we believe organizations should take the leap into the cloud.

Gartner has predicted that the worldwide Hosted Virtual Desktop (HVD) market will accelerate through 2013 to reach 49 million units, up from 500,000+ units in 2009.

THE EIGHT REASONS:

ACCESSIBILITY

In today's age of mobility, employees are working on the road, from hotels, in multiple offices and from home. Remote access is no longer a want, but a need. With DaaS, employees can securely access their desktop anywhere with just an Internet connection. It provides access to all applications and data and enables users to interact with other users from any Internetconnected workstation - making the virtual office a reality.

Many organizations are taking advantage of this ease-of-accessibility to reduce overhead costs. Now, with DaaS, more organizations are allowing their employees to telecommute, which reduces office space requirements and supports "green" business initiatives. To combat those lack of productivity issues that often concern management when discussing telecommuting, DaaS also enables organizations to monitor their employees' activity even when they are working from home.

MAINTENANCE

One of the biggest headaches for an IT team is maintaining the hardware and multiple software packages and upgrading them as needed. This is one of the top reasons businesses are turning to DaaS. It becomes the responsibility of the service provider to repair and maintain the equipment. It will allow you to easily track your software maintenance plans and to schedule upgrades.

Your employees are no longer interrupted during their busy days by IT professionals going from computer to computer to upgrade to the latest and greatest version of Microsoft Office or another application. Now, the hosted solutions company is able to make the upgrade on their end, in a centralized location and the users can remain productive - often without ever knowing an upgrade took place.

BACKUP AND DISASTER RECOVERY

Disasters can happen to any business. Disasters can come in multiple forms, both man-made and natural, such as fires, hurricanes, floods or simple power outages. With many companies going out of business in the past decade due to disasters of one type or another, the IT department has been handed down requirements to ensure their organization's mission-critical data is backed up regularly and able to be easily recovered. This responsibility alone has been a time-intensive process for many IT departments.

Now, with DaaS, the responsibility for backing up data is placed on the service provider. Backups are performed remotely on a frequent basis depending on your needs and data is stored in at least two different locations in case one of the service provider's facilities has a system failure.

SECURITY

Information security is no longer an option; it's an imperative. DaaS enables you to address complex data privacy and other security requirements more easily and cost effectively than you could on your own. Serving as your virtual IT department, the service provider monitors your IT infrastructure 24 hours a day to prevent hackers, viruses and other malicious intruders from compromising your data.

Additionally, with your data stored in a secure off-site data center and not on your employees' personal computers, there is less of a chance that your company data will be stolen.

MINIMAL IT STAFF

Under the DaaS approach, businesses are able to lower support and management costs. The service provider manages your computing infrastructure, eliminating the need to hire an in-house IT department to manage servers. It also eliminates the need to grow an already existing IT department that has too much work and not enough people to handle the tasks.

The IT staff no longer needs to spend their time handling end-user issues, a task that has proven difficult with limited IT resources and multiple office locations. The hosting company provides end-user support and allows your IT team to focus on more strategic initiatives.

COST

Sophisticated technology comes at a price. By using the DaaS approach, the service provider takes over the provisions of your computer infrastructure and eliminates the need for you to make capital expenditures on servers, networking technology and other costly computer equipment. By sharing services with other organizations through the DaaS model, operational costs are significantly lower and access to best-in-class technologies is made more affordable.

It also allows you to actually budget for your IT expenses and eliminate costly surprises. Based on a subscription fee, you will always have predictable monthly fees.

Additionally, with all your applications and data hosted off-site, your hardware requirements are reduced and experience shows you will be able to extend the life of your current desktop investments through the DaaS model.

FLEXIBILITY

With economic changes, both good and bad, also come necessary changes to a business. Having the ability to be flexible is critical. If you need to downsize or an employee leaves the company, the DaaS model allows you to "turn off" or delete an account/user and you will no longer pay a monthly fee for that user account. It saves money and is handled by the service provider - turning into a time savings for your IT department as well.

As you hire new employees, integrate multiple locations or add new operations, new accounts can be setup rapidly through the service provider. For new locations, you don't need to add servers or software - just connect to your applications provided by the hosting provider.

DaaS is the perfect solution for interns and seasonal businesses as well. By paying per user on a monthly basis, you only pay for a desktop account for the three or four months they are employed and it is easy to turn their accounts off and on. And, for seasonal businesses with large influxes of employees during certain parts of the year, it is a significant cost savings to pay monthly, not annually.

COMPLIANCE

As industry and governmental regulations continue to increase, you must take compliance seriously. It is often a difficult task for an in-house IT department to undertake. If the DaaS service provider is SAS 70 Type II Certified (Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70: Service Organizations), your IT department can focus their efforts elsewhere.

A SAS 70 Type II certification is based on five elements of internal control that are tested by an independent auditing company. When it comes to protecting your business' data and applications and ensuring business continuity, having this "insurance policy" that your systems are being effectively managed will provide management with the peace of mind that solid internal controls and processes are in place to protect the organization's valuable information.

SELECTING A HOSTING SOLUTIONS PROVIDER

Now that you have been convinced that DaaS makes sense for your organization, finding the right IT solutions provider is the next step.

Service providers are not all created equal and making a change to a DaaS model should not be taken lightly. It is important to thoroughly evaluate service providers to ensure the selection meets your organization's business requirements and will become a true partner and help grow your company. There are seven key areas that need to be evaluated when selecting a hosted solutions provider:

EXPERIENCE - You should ask them how long they have been offering hosted solutions and how long they have been in business. It's important to select a stable hosting partner with a long history and solid track record. Experience Counts. Only time spent with the system and delivery model, sorting through issues and documenting their causes and fixes can guarantee that the same problems won't keep cropping up in delivery of your applications and access to your data.

COMPLIANCE - Make sure that the service provider (not just their data center) is SAS 70 Type II certified. This verifies that they have the proper internal controls and processes in place to deliver high quality services.

PROTECTION - Ask them how and how often their systems are backed up, what technologies and procedures are used and how do they store your data? It is important to make sure that the hosting provider is taking the necessary measures to back up your data and ensure that your data and systems can be easily recovered.

SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENT (SLA) - Does the provider have a Service Level Agreement that provides a money-back guarantee for unplanned downtime? A good SLA can help ensure success for both you and the service provider.

DOWNTIME CREDITS - Does the hosting provider automatically track downtime and credit your account according to the terms of the SLA? Tracking and reporting downtime and providing credits should the service provider's responsibility.

DATA PROTECTION - Make sure to ask for and review the hosting agreement from the hosting provider and make sure it includes sections that will protect your organization and your data.

REFERENCES - Talking to the potential service provider's existing customers will provide you with valuable insights on the implementation and use of the DaaS solution and the quality of their customer service. Don't skip this step.

It is important to thoroughly evaluate service providers to ensure the selection meets your business requirements and will become a true partner and help grow your company.

CONCLUSION

DaaS is the perfect option for small and mid-sized organizations to quickly and cost-effectively enhance the way they manage IT. However, since this is a "service", finding the right partner to serve as your virtual IT department is also essential.

With a centralized, consistent platform for managing multiple locations and supporting virtual workforces, DaaS provides users with the availability, scalability, security, redundancy and end-user support required to be successful in today's competitive business climate.

CASE STUDY

The Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC) is faced with many of the same challenges of other small or mid-sized businesses with multiple locations. With members and staff dispersely located, remote accessibility to its systems and files is critical.

AESC selected Independence IT to host all of its productivity applications, MS Exchange email and Blackberry Enterprise Services. Now, AESC leaves the installation, updating and maintenance of software and other IT management functions, such as handling virus threats and data backup to the team at Independence IT and has eliminated time spent on mundane tasks for the AESC IT staff.

"Handing over our IT responsibilities to Independence IT has proven very beneficial," explained Matt Helbing, AESC's director of technology. "Reducing the size of the IT staff was critical for an organization of our size. And, with handing off our IT responsibilities to a firm of technology experts, we are now able to focus more on what we do best."

ABOUT INDEPENDENCE IT

Independence IT is a leading provider of application hosting and infrastructure management solutions enabling small and mid-sized businesses to leverage enterprise-class availability, security and agility. Serving as a virtual IT department rivaling most Fortune 500 companies through its Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) approach, Independence IT shoulders its clients' IT management burdens - from application hosting, server management and software maintenance; to help desk, security, disaster recovery, backup and archiving. The firm offers reliable solutions hosted at a best-in-class data center and backed by top quality customer support empowering clients to run and grown their businesses more efficiently and cost-effectively.

LEARN MORE about how Independence IT can help you enjoy the freedom of anytime, anywhere access— (888) 299.4552 or info@independenceIT.com.