ANUNTA

IT leaders have to navigate a sea of challenges in today’s cloudy business environment.

Inflationary pressures make it difficult for businesses to acquire critical IT infrastructure. Companies struggle to hire and retain skilled IT personnel. As organizations actively accelerate their digital and cloud transformation strategies, maintaining digital and technological sovereignty is a massive priority. Added to these, data security and compliance in the face of persistent cyberattacks and strict regulatory laws has become more important than ever.

In short, executive and IT managers must figure out how to meet ever-increasing operational and security requirements with less budget, reduced staff, and lower levels of certainty about the immediate future.

Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) can become an important tool to address these challenges. Rapidly becoming a mainstream technology, a fully managed DaaS platform can help businesses attain cost-effectiveness, ease the workload of their IT teams, and ensure data security and compliance.

What is DaaS and how does it work?

DaaS is a desktop computing infrastructure that uses virtual machines to deliver desktop sessions to end users. All virtual desktops and applications are hosted in the cloud, and nothing resides locally.

DaaS makes it possible to deploy virtual desktop sessions quickly, and DaaS infrastructure can scale to support hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of individual users. That’s why businesses across a range of industries – such as healthcare, finance, insurance, professional services, and business process management – are turning to DaaS to:

• Support remote or hybrid workers.
• Reduce IT spending through pay-as-you-go pricing models.
• Enhance data and application security.
• Increase agility.

How DaaS improves reliability under inflationary pressures

A slowdown in global economic growth, inflation, and IT product costs have significantly increased the financial pressure for organizations across the globe. Most companies likely have less budget to support IT initiatives or maintenance operations. IT leaders now face tremendous pressure to do more with less budget, and are faced with the need to find innovative ways to maximize the ROI of existing IT investments while also making changes that reduce overall IT costs.

DaaS provides enhanced reliability during times of inflation as organizations can launch as many virtual desktops as they need, quickly and easily, without having to rely on hardware procurement. Virtual desktops also provide hassle-free de-provisioning as opposed to traditional desktops, resulting in zero wastage in idle hardware.

The pay-as-you-go subscription model saves cost while ensuring easy scalability – a feature that holds value while organizations gear up to weather the upcoming inflation.

How DaaS overcomes staffing shortages

The competitive hiring market has made it difficult for many IT organizations to hire and retain skilled engineers. Once consequence of IT staffing shortages is that IT teams may no longer be able to maintain the same level of inhouse operations that they traditionally have been doing. Engineers are stretched thinner, leaving less time to spend on work like patching and updating critical systems. The lack of skilled personnel may mean cutting corners when it comes to IT management and support operations.

DaaS helps overstretched IT teams do more with fewer personnel. Instead of desktop support, IT teams can focus on new digitization projects, such as cloud, automation, and data analytics.

With DaaS, IT engineers no longer have to worry about servicing or updating physical desktops. They can rely on DaaS providers to manage their virtual PC infrastructure.

How DaaS enhances security to ensure digital sovereignty

Digital sovereignty is the concept that the data collected and stored in a country is subject to the data laws and governance of that country. Any violation of these regulations will result in massive damages in cost and brand name for organizations.

When it comes to their data, especially sensitive customer data, organizations must have complete control and visibility on where it is stored, how it is used, and who has access to it. Data security (with access control and insulation against cyber threats) and regulatory compliance (varying across the industry) are becoming more challenging daily.

With DaaS, businesses never have to worry that the loss or theft of devices will expose sensitive data. They can also centrally monitor all desktop environments to detect signs of security breaches, and they can harden systems against unauthorized access using techniques like multi-factor authentication.

DaaS also helps organizations ensure compliance and avoid legal risks by giving them complete control over their data.

Anunta’s DaaS value proposition

While DaaS offers clear and distinct benefits of particular value for IT organizations today, the challenge that IT leaders sometimes encounter is the difficulty of getting started with DaaS.

Building a virtual desktop infrastructure from scratch requires a significant investment of staff time and financial resources, both of which are scarce in the typical business today.

Anunta offers a simpler approach. Our fully automated Vendor-Defined DaaS, deploys a new virtual desktop environment in a matter of hours and helps scale up or down easily based on requirements. An enterprise-ready virtual desktop solution, Managed DaaS is not only highly customized and uniquely tailored to enterprise IT requirements, but it also seamlessly integrates existing IT tools and processes, ensuring next to no disruption for the IT staff.

With the end-to-end management of the customer’s virtual environment, Anunta’s DaaS ensures that IT leaders and CXOs can focus more on their digital transformation priorities rather than IT infrastructure and operations, effectively furthering their core business goals.

This is a summary of our Gartner Analyst-validated whitepaper titled “Leveraging DaaS to Thrive in Today’s Cloudy Business Environment”. Download the whitepaper to understand more on why DaaS is the best solution to weather the stormy waters of today’s business.

“36% of manufacturing enterprises realize above average business value from IT spending in digitalization when compared with peers,” says a Gartner report on how advanced manufacturing companies are now capitalizing on the latest technology trends to drive value.

One of these technology tools that has been adding consistent value to manufacturing businesses is Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS). In fact, the need for cost-effective digital transformation is already driving the industry towards desktop virtualization. The desktop virtualization market in manufacturing is expected to register a CAGR of 9.3% over the forecast period of 2021 – 2026.

A crucial advantage that DaaS brings in for the manufacturing industry is the massive time saving in device procurement and the subsequent cost saving. Manufacturing businesses heavily rely on devices with high-end specifications for their graphics professionals to develop CAD models and complex engineering simulations. These specifications vary based on project requirements, which is where the long road to hardware procurement begins. With DaaS, this road becomes much shorter.

How does DaaS tackle the IT hardware challenges in the manufacturing industry?

Anunta recently helped one of India’s leading steel manufacturing companies in addressing the twin challenges of time and cost involved in device procurement for their graphics team.

The customer had multiple projects which depended on devices with high-end graphics specifications. While the smooth execution of the project relied on these end user devices, there were multiple challenges associated with it.

One was the massive amount of time spent on device procurement. Because of the highly specific hardware configurations, this followed a long process that involved understanding the specifications, inviting bids from OEMs, finalizing the brand, procuring the end user device, installing the required software, and shipping the device to the end user. The average time taken for device procurement and deployment was a minimum of 6 weeks.

Apart from the time and cost involved in device procurement, another challenge lay in de-provisioning the device at the completion of the project. Since each project came with varying hardware specifications, device repurposing was a rare scenario, resulting in idle resources.

Anunta was able to help mitigate these challenges by moving the manufacturer to a DaaS infrastructure, specifically Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD). By leveraging AVD, we reduced the time taken for device procurement from 6 weeks to just 3 days, even with the high-end specifications. Moreover, we could also ensure hassle-free de-provisioning of virtual machines after project completion, resulting in zero wastage in the form of idle hardware.

The customer also benefitted from a subscription-based model, saving cost, and ensuring easy scalability.

Overall, Anunta was able to improve application availability dramatically with no major IT incidents, ensuring seamless and reliable manufacturing operations and processes.

What are the other benefits that DaaS offers the manufacturing industry?

• Empowering a distributed workforce: DaaS provides seamless and secure access to real-time data, enhancing workforce efficiency and employee autonomy.
• Centralizing all data: With data stored in a centralized platform, all stakeholders can access and share data. There’s also minimal risk of data loss as device failure has no impact on the centrally saved data.
• Enhancing security and compliance: Leading cloud platforms are compliant to all regulatory standards.
• Improving business agility and continuity: Seamless access to data and applications helps the workforce stay active during crises.

How does DaaS boost the growth of manufacturing businesses?

By eliminating the need to invest heavily in purchasing, maintaining, and upgrading hardware, DaaS contributes directly to the growth of the business. With no major infrastructural constraints, the money can be rightfully invested in other crucial operations for growth and market expansion.

There’s also the hidden advantage that DaaS brings in by enabling businesses in their ESG priorities by reducing carbon footprint and energy consumption. With a large-scale environment involving multiple plants and high-powered equipment, this is one advantage of DaaS that manufacturing businesses can truly leverage.

The manufacturing industry, that has long been tied down because of its massive fleet of on-premises equipment, impeding its digital transformation, can now adapt to the changing times. By simplifying its IT infrastructure and desktop management and eliminating security and cost concerns, DaaS has the potential to effectively boost the digital workplace transformation strategies of manufacturing businesses.

The healthcare sector has been grappling with looming cyber security challenges over the last several years. Healthcare records offer a high-value target for cybercriminals looking to make quick money on the dark web or initiate more focused attacks. Additionally, with lives potentially at stake, caregivers become increasingly vulnerable to disruptive digital acts, including healthcare ransomware attacks.

Healthcare institutes generate tons of data containing confidential and valuable insights. As the industry switches from paper and documents to a digitized setting, the attack surface keeps on expanding. With data being one of the critical pillars, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and desktop as a service (DaaS) are earning good word among caregivers and patients alike.

Fear that critical patient information is always on the line? Keeping up with regulatory changes seems a challenging task? VDI solutions tackle these pressing issues with their innovative security offerings.

In fact, they are silently but rapidly becoming a potential weapon in the cyber security armory against ransomware attacks in healthcare. Ironically, data security and privacy have been a primary tight spot for organizations that delayed their migration to DaaS and VDI solutions. But now, the same leading-edge desktop virtualization technologies are finding use in identifying and combating cybercrimes.

This article explains how healthcare settings can profit from the security benefits of DaaS and VDI services.

Secure Healthcare VDI images

Creating an efficient image implies providing a lightweight VDI solution. Healthcare environments are characterized by numerous divisions in a mix. Hence, building the correct image for each domain is vital. For instance:

• Executive staff (persistent image)
• Labs and healthcare contractors (pooled image)
• Department-based employees (both persistent and pooled images)

Each of these images will have its respective stack of policies focused on the end users. Accordingly, healthcare IT can deliver applications through user cohorts, and these images can remain light and clean.
By designing secure master golden images, IT admins can define updates to a single master image (in the respective division) and update that instance. Based on that, a reboot cycle for all the secondary images pointing to the master will make way for updates. Such management helps streamline a controlled VDI deployment.

Avoid Downtime during Crises

Like any other industry, downtime also translates to a loss of business in healthcare too. During system downtime, medical practitioners cannot respond to patient complaints, follow up on leads, or deliver care.
In healthcare, more than money is at risk. If computer systems are suspended, staff cannot book emergency appointments, and doctors and nurses cannot confirm medications or procedure timings. Eventually, lives are on the line.

During natural disasters such as a fire outbreak or floods, paper documents could get lost, compromised, or tattered. If the equipment has sustained damages, medical records saved on-premise might also get lost. Computers can freeze amidst a task, resulting in unsaved documents and lost progress.

DaaS keeps healthcare records in independent, centralized servers in real-time. As such, the odds of data loss with onsite files or hard copies reduce when medical staff save information on the cloud.

Besides, VDI solves general problems, such as load balancing, which often leads to standstills. If a single server fails to manage a process, DaaS vendors distribute the demand over multiple servers, ensuring healthcare institutes do not short-circuit during peak times.

Stricter Authorization to Avert Ransomware in Healthcare

An inquiry revealed that a Huntington Hospital (the US) employee grabbed the records of 13,000 patients without access permission. The now-former employee has been convicted of a criminal HIPAA offense. Worse, the hospital had to provide one-year complimentary identity theft protection services as prevention.

In most healthcare ransomware attacks, security loopholes occur from internal sources, including disgruntled workers or contractors who want to access the systems for vested interests. To avoid critical medical records from falling into the hands of suspicious people, healthcare needs more than a simple password approach. Simply put, a comprehensive VDI role-based access control (RBAC) matrix.
DaaS-based RBAC grants resource access to medical staff on a need-to-use basis according to their roles at the healthcare facility. This approach to identity and access management (IAM) allows only those with valid reasons to log into the virtual servers without compromising patient privacy.

Those with permission to use virtual desktops will require approval via digital certificates, biometrics interaction, or multi-factor authentication (MFA) before accessing relevant data to perform their duties.

Data Encryption as an Additional Security Layer

Private sensitive details, including protected health information (PHI) and electronic health records (EHR), are among the popular prizes for threat actors. Therefore, the guidelines for caregivers analyzing patients’ data entail stringent data protection requirements that come with hefty fines if not fulfilled.

Perimeter security approaches, such as firewalls, to strengthen the cyber security fabric are no longer capable enough to thwart today’s healthcare ransomware attacks. Complementing them with VDI’s data encryption feature is a must in a layered approach to data security.

Whenever EHRs float across multiple systems, their confidentiality and integrity become vulnerable to various risks – Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attacks, accidental exposure, and insider threats. Encrypting them in transit, mostly via the transport layer security (TLS) protocol, protects from many of these cyber risks.

Encryption encodes EHRs and PHI in such a way that only legitimate users can access them. It denies unauthorized third parties who do not have the required decryption key from reading or modifying classified information. In other words, even if a would-be interceptor physically nabs a server with encrypted information, that data remains completely undecipherable without the correct secret key.

Encryption does not guarantee the integrity of PHI – at rest and in transit. That said, as data is in constant evolution, healthcare settings can leverage it to check their backup integrity.

Frequent Security Patches and Updates

Unpatched software is among the primary reasons behind ransomware attacks in healthcare globally. Network threats are continuously evolving as malicious actors keep innovating their intrusion tactics. Cybercriminals often exploit critical security holes only a few hours after a software’s public launch. For small- and medium-scale healthcare centers, keeping software updated without triggering serious operation disturbances is challenging.

As such, regular software and app updates are crucial to boost the protection of confidential resources from potential healthcare ransomware attacks. Conventional IT security models do not execute timely updates or as often as necessary, thus exposing healthcare data and networks to digital intrusions.

DaaS vendors regularly install patches for their clients (healthcare settings), who can continue leveraging the cloud services without operational downtime. This reduces their chances of becoming victims of ransomware and saves them time in the process. When the staff reside in remote locations, VDI software solutions help ensure all employees are up-to-date and remain productive.

Secure Data Access from a Single Location

Moving healthcare data to DaaS allows medical staff to accumulate diverse databases in a single place. No doubt, the bulk of patients’ data is safeguarded. However, saving them in multiple sources – hard drives, spreadsheets, and hard copies – keeps petty items, such as a post-surgery note or a prescription, at the risk of getting misplaced or lost.

Storing medical records in a DaaS infrastructure opens new avenues for data management and integration (DMI) protocols. DMI is a complicated and evolving area. Simply put, it incorporates procedures and policies that companies implement to ensure that the right people have timely access to accurate information.

For hospitals and clinics, having plain and updated records is paramount before service providers shift or merge them with other data. If errors occur, for instance, in medical histories, patient details, prescriptions, or financial information, the healthcare institute can end up draining piles of cash and public backlash. Not to mention the physical harm if patients do not receive accurate treatment.

DaaS to Make Healthcare Cyber Security Smarter

Safeguarding critical resources in virtual servers is not only an IT issue but a paramount aspect of overall business strategy. The continuous rise in the sophistication of ransomware attacks in healthcare has influenced caregivers to realize the security benefits of the DaaS architecture.

Besides, the recent ransomware attack at the Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health is evident enough that cyber security intrusions continue to plague the healthcare system. Hence, organizations are inviting IT security pros to boardroom discussions for a well-thought-out security roadmap.

Today, virtual desktops are gradually replacing desktop setups in healthcare institutes. The perks end-users get to experience are hardware-agnostic desktop access, easy IT maintenance, better data security, and so on. Moreover, the security advances that VDI services boast are motivating healthcare that has been reluctant to embrace the technology to at least reassess their feasibility.

The intertwined nature of providing care reflects how an attack on one section of healthcare organizations can trigger a domino effect. While DaaS is not the silver bullet against ransomware in healthcare, it will keep classified medical resources organized and as secure as possible.

Desktop virtualization technologies are undoubtedly here to stay and are a flourishing trend of measurable outcomes. Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), two prominent solutions in the industry, have cemented their place as the go-to IT solution for workplaces of all sorts.

The steps involved in VDI implementation are the same as those in any large-scale tech project: understanding needs, setting objectives and milestones, researching, choosing vendors, and planning and strategy.

That being considered, organizations must take necessary measures throughout the VDI implementation process to optimize their working efficiency. This article explains seven common VDI/DaaS issues that most (if not all) companies often make.

Cost-effectiveness at the Cost of User Experience

Keeping users at the center of End User Computing (EUC) efforts should be a no-brainer for organizations. Unfortunately, most of them turn a blind eye to this aspect of their VDI implementation process. While business leaders have budget limitations, emphasizing only cost-cutting and neglecting user experience will lead to net loss down the line due to sub-par productivity.

Case in point, a company picks a public cloud-based multi-user model to reduce its capital expenses (CAPEX). Such a framework enables numerous users to share the resources and costs of a particular virtual machine (VM). However, if the cloud environment is not appropriately sized, these cost reduction tactics can later shape into performance issues that eventually annoy end-users.

Purchasing the best VDI service is all about squaring end-user experience with CAPEX. Besides, organizations must invest in monitoring tools that allow them to gauge UX and make necessary tweaks when things go south. These tools help them assure they are delivering a splendid end-user experience by capturing what is flashing on their employees’ physical monitors.

The total costs of ownership (TCO) for desktop virtualization solutions can outshine that of traditional physical desktops. Hence, companies should realize the benefits these technologies will come with and ensure they ink a valuable deal.

Seeing all Service Providers through the Same Lens

All DaaS/VDI vendors appear identical from a worm’s-eye perspective. They offer packages with similar functionalities at varying price tags.

Desktop virtualization services by public cloud hyperscalers allow users to work only in a single – “Mono Cloud” – setting. On the flip side, multi-cloud DaaS solutions equip companies with the flexibility to switch between various public clouds. As such, they can change their EUC environments – by transferring some data from one public cloud to another, for example, without hampering their VDI implementation strategies.

By dint of the circumstance, businesses must consider the following factors while comparing different service providers:

• Security: Multi Factor Authentication (MFA), data backup, and anti-malware software
• Mobility: Access to critical resources anywhere, anytime
• Uptime: At least 95% (Industry standard is 99.99%)
• After-sales support: Resolving queries quickly and accurately
• Scalability: Easy to scale when required

Case in point, a VDI service package bundled with 90% uptime and no resting data encryption can cost more money even if the upfront expenses are low. Conversely, a VDI solution offering 99% uptime with transport layer security (TLS) 1.3 and 256-bit encryption would be an excellent buy. While the initial costs could be high, the overall return on investment (ROI) will be impressive.

Inadequate Resource Planning

Before kick-starting VDI implementation, organizations have the opportunity to lay out a map for resource allocation. VMs will consume tremendous network bandwidth, storage, and memory to function optimally. If companies cut back on these computing requirements early on, their operation efficacy will take a hard hit.

As such, organizations must avoid planning out resources based on current or near-future needs to stitch an IT fabric, they will utilize in coming years. With that in mind, they should assess the resources they need and their status before, during, and after deploying the VDI solution.

Case in point, monitoring RAM, network bandwidth, and storage usage of every computing device. This alongside the requirements of mission-critical applications to determine the final resource requirement. Moreover, taking some additional units beforehand can help prevent system freeze or outages.

Understanding the difference between what those modules should be doing and how they actually operate is essential. Besides, businesses should be deeply acquainted with the hosts or applications in use to avoid guesswork, which could lead to inaccuracies.

Not Educating Staff about VDI Implementation

Nabbing new VDI/DaaS solutions is just one part of the entire story. Users must be aware of their entire feature sets and how to unfold their full potential. Organizations should inform about the tech-based changes in the workplaces across the board in advance. They need to provide their employees with adequate training on virtual desktops.

That includes how to run virtual desktops – whether on a virtual private network (VPN) or own web-browsing devices – what login credentials to use, and how to access and save data. Training employees will help prevent future troubles.

For this, businesses must perceive their employees as stakeholders and shadow their activities to determine how they can map them into their VDI implementation. In addition, companies must communicate any downside so that employees can inform the concerned authority on issues, including long login times, device lag, and video streaming difficulties.

When deploying DaaS/VDI, organizations should work in phases and follow up with their employees after each phase to check on them and receive feedback. They need to learn their preferences and needs to ensure fluid adoption.

Not Managing VM Sprawl

Virtualization or VM sprawl has been a longstanding challenge and can be particularly detrimental in a DaaS/VDI environment. IT teams should standardize graphics and images as much as possible to slash the degree of cleaning and maintenance each of them requires.

If a department, for instance, needs certain programs, the company should move them out through the configuration manager option (or virtualizing the apps completely) after the user logs in. This offers a single image for all users instead of a different image incorporating those essential programs.

Companies using multiple files should oversee user expectations and organize the images by the task in a distributed desktop environment. Case in point, a salesperson who will communicate via VPN and requires rapid response times, a web developer who consumes a lot of RAM, and a newbie who should be denied permission to access those applications or use USB drives.

Henceforward, IT teams should preserve the documents and disable inactive virtual desktops as employees update or leave the company.

Purchasing New Set of Equipment (Unnecessarily)

Some service providers convince end-users to replace their entire existing infrastructure with new hardware to migrate to desktop virtualization. Not to mention a string of thin clients. However, that is not the case. Businesses must never be frugal on spending sufficient capital but efficiently utilize traditional IT assets.

With desktop virtualization platforms, companies no longer have to spend on hardware and its maintenance. The office computers and laptops they already have will work absolutely fine unless they do not support internet connectivity.

Besides, VMs need not be wired to a thin client or server. Employees can also use tablets and handheld devices (based on remote access and network capabilities). That is where the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) software comes to the rescue.

Companies should avoid wasting bandwidth on their hardware during VDI implementation and rather stick to existing servers if possible. Moreover, they should not squander money by allocating a thin line/virtual desktop for each employee. Instead, they should check whether they can share these if feasible, for instance, part-time employees who work alternating shifts.

As such, organizations must use their current IT equipment until they wear out before buying new ones. If they need additional devices, they can allow BYOD for a while to understand the effect of this decision.

Taking Security Lightly

With desktop virtualization services, all the data reside in a centralized location and are off-limits to everybody unless authenticated and authorized. Organizations can disable access by decommissioning their employees’ virtual desktops in a few clicks. With all these facilities, several organizations cease thinking about their security infrastructure.

However, VDI implementation does not mean the C-suite can relax, as digital intrusions could still occur via disgruntled employees, rogue system admins, social engineering, and network sniffing.

While choosing desktop virtualization services, businesses must enquire about the security features, load balancing, and security upgrades and patching. Following is the checklist:

• Firewalls: To authorize users to access business-critical data and applications
• Intrusion Detection and Prevention System (IDPS): To monitor and mitigate cyberattack(s)
• MFA: To authenticate every employee and stakeholder entering the cloud network
• Regular backup: For disaster recovery and business continuity
• TLS 1.3 and 256-bit encryption: To safeguard resting and in-transit data

Prepare Now to Prevent Glitches in Future

While this summary underscores some critical pitfalls to avoid during VDI implementation, the list can extend further as DaaS/VDI adoption increases. As such, companies must not live under the impression that migrating to desktop virtualization is a smooth process.

Mistakes occur, and more of them are unexpected. Therefore, companies should log and learn from their mistakes before including them in their VDI implementation.