Desktop as a service is picking up interest in India even as concerns on RoI and complexity of the technology remain
By Jasmine Desai
The year 2014 looks set to be a big one for the data as a service (DaaS) market, as demand continues to grow for anytime, anywhere access to corporate data and as companies continue to look for ways to reduce the TCO for enterprise desktops.
One indication of this is the growing number of vendors targeting DaaS. Recently, NTT Communications of Japan announced its foray in the US market, VMware also came up with its VMware Horizon offering.
IDC expects the workspace-as-a-service (WaaS) software market, which includes both DaaS and desktop applications-as-a-service markets, to grow to $661 million by 2016, representing a CAGR of 84.6% from 2011-2016. The market opportunity is much bigger if one adds infrastructure and add-on services.
DaaS is a nascent market in India, but it is generating a lot of interest among enterprises. Says DD Mishra, Research Director, Gartner, “In this geography, DaaS has triggered a lot of curiosity. Though many people are planning to consider DaaS as a part of their strategy, we will have to wait to see significant adoption.”
Changing the legacy
The legacy desktop is going through a significant change. This is primarily because the end users are increasingly accessing corporate resources from a variety of non-Windows devices. As such, organisations are looking for ways and means to provide access to applications irrespective of the OS or hardware platform used.
For any organisation to enable DaaS, desktop virtualisation is the core component. One needs to decouple applications from the physical PC. Thus, regardless of the endpoint, customers can access these applications. Once DaaS is deployed, organisations can choose to run it from their on-premise data centre or as a service provided by a third-party hosting firm.
According to Ramesh Vantipalli, Head, EUC India & Systems Engineering (South), VMware, “End-user applications are evolving as well, with traditional and cloud applications being delivered from private and public clouds. With the cloud now being a viable business option, companies should take advantage of cloud-hosted desktops and transform end-user computing into next generation workspaces.”
DaaS has been labelled expensive, but there is a way to deal with it. Atul Ahuja, Director, Desktop & Apps, Microsoft Alliance, India Subcontinent, Citrix, says, “When CIOs acquire PCs, the real cost they see is just the cost of a physical PC, but they overlook other components like maintenance, manpower, etc. Thus, the actual cost includes these variables and operational expenditures.”
So when one compares the actual operational cost of PCs with the deployment cost of DaaS over a period of time, DaaS can even come out to be cheaper.
Says Mishra of Gartner, “One of the problems with early DaaS offerings was lack of understanding of the business use of desktop, especially the application portfolio and application dependencies. Reducing complexity of technology can be the key to reducing cost.”
For a typical task-based worker with office and email integrated into the image, it can be a relatively simple scenario, he says. If local productivity and Web-enabled line of business applications form the majority of the user application profile, DaaS may be a good fit, especially if the Web content is public SaaS content.
There are interesting developments in the market: for example, Microsoft and Citrix collaborating to offer XenDesktop hosted shared desktops; VMware’s Desktone acquisition, and Amazon’s AWS Workspace offering. These developments will continue till the market matures towards improved cost performance. Over a period of time, simplification of licenses will enhance the usage of DaaS.
IT is also under immense pressure to enable the new mobile workforce without sacrificing security and control. For this, IT must ensure that corporate data and applications are secure and it also must control the costs associated with the management of end user devices.
There are several ways to look at cost reductions through DaaS. In the Daas model, organisations do not have to pay upfront cost for a device lifecycle of 3-5 years. Another aspect to cost is the reduction in size of the manpower required to support the DaaS infrastructure (compared to legacy desktops). There is also direct increase in employee productivity, as DaaS gives flexible work options to them and facilitates workplace mobility.
Ahuja of Citirx says, “CIOs are also considering DaaS as it can reduce the cost incurred on setting up workstations for employees. They do not have to be of similar fit, as customers can configure DaaS models based on the usage pattern and work profile of employees.”
Concerns regarding DaaS
One of the concerns for organisations is that their applications and data may not find the path to cloud. When the desktop is in the cloud, but all the important applications and data are in the local data centre, a non-optimal user experience is likely to be created.
For these situations, Mishra of Gartner gives some advice. “One should get those servers that are hosting applications into the public cloud and, possibly, with the same cloud provider which is hosting DaaS.” Another option, he says, is to use on-premise DaaS.
ROI is another problem area for DaaS initiatives, as it is difficult to calculate ROI in the absence of comprehensive evaluation.
Says Mishra, “I would discourage speedy decisions while deploying DaaS. A phased approach for selection, containing several stages—starting from evaluation to pilot roll-out—can provide better insights for a compelling business case.”
Some of the business goals CIOs can look at for evaluating DaaS include agility improvement, increase in productivity, better control, enhanced flexibility and, of course, TCO reduction.
This should be followed by identification of appropriate use case and technology. One should also look at segmenting the end users and thus optimising the roll-out for better cost justification.
DaaS is a compelling technology, but vendors still need to demonstrate it in more real-life scenarios and prove that it is as cost-effective and simple as touted.
Essar adopts desktop virtualisation
Essar Group, a multinational conglomerate in sectors as varied as steel, oil & gas, power, BPO, telecom services and shipping, employs 75,000 people, with operations in more than 25 countries, was facing data security as a major challenge. The situation was aggravated because of two reasons: demand for user mobility and the trend of bring your own device (BYOD) catching up.
“We had around 3,000 BlackBerry users and more than 2,000 people with tablets, and with all the applications being accessed on the tablets, it was tough to ensure security of critical information,” says Jayantha Prabhu, Chief Technology Officer, Essar Group.
The distributed workforce and the complex hardware environment further added to the challenge. Essar had 8,000 desktops to be managed, which also included its BPO organisation. “We needed a solution that would be able to streamline and simplify our hardware management process,” says Prabhu.
Essar approached desktop virtualisation with three major objectives: to enable highly secure remote working, reduce the time spent on management and deliver virtual desktops and applications to approximately 3,000-4,000 of its mobile workforce. Essar discovered that it could move 75 to 80% of users to the desktop virtualisation platform.
Working closely with Citrix’s hardware and architecture teams, Prabhu completed migration of 5,000 desktop users.
Essar’s decision of implementing Citrix XenDesktop and Citrix NetScaler solutions across the globe utilises a building block approach, which can then scale to thousands of virtual desktops. It can deliver applications to any device in any workplace environment, supporting a rich user experience, and provide IT with additional security and control. The most important benefit realised by the Essar Group through desktop virtualisation was that of information security. The company was able to centralise information and not have it loaded on individual devices.
“While the IT, ITES and banking sectors have adopted desktop virtualisation solution quickly at this scale and complexity, we are the first manufacturing operation in India that is going for such an implementation of desktop virtualisation,” says Prabhu.
With 8,000 licenses of the XenDesktop virtualisation solution implemented, Essar now plans to roll out the solution for all users across its offices. “One of the main advantages of Citrix desktop virtualisation technology is the ability of the organisation to have control and governance over the corporate data instead of leaving it at the mercy of the end user. For us, desktop virtualisation as a technology also helps the organisation strengthen its governance and compliance by giving the capability to monitor, manage and restrict the applications on the virtual desktop,” says Prabhu.
