By Gabe Knuth for BrianMadden.com
Workspot is doing more than just DaaS, adding in some managed services on top of their management plane and orchestration. Could this be the kind of DaaS offering that catches on?
Tomorrow, Workspot will be releasing a new Azure-based DaaS platform called DaaS 2.0. You may already know Workspot for their VDI 2.0 product, which Jack and I awarded the Best of VMworld 2016 award in the Desktop Virtualization and Mobility category. We chose VDI 2.0 because their platform made it easy to orchestrate a VDI environment on premises or in the cloud via their cloud-based management plane, and because they still have their secure mobile workspace container that provides access to those virtual desktops and applications along with other applications and data. DaaS 2.0 takes all the benefits of VDI 2.0, and then some, and brings them to the cloud.
The market has shifted
According to Workspot, their pipeline has flipped to where most of their new customers are looking for a DaaS option as opposed to traditional on-premises options. I’ve noted that the DaaS market is maturing, but this is the first time I’ve heard of that level of interest in DaaS. Workspot has a mid-market focus, so the raised interest could be limited to that sector.
Whatever the driving force may be, Workspot is in a unique position because they’ve already built a cloud-based management plane on Azure. Until now, it hasn’t been as simple as pointing that to Azure to create VMs, but the relationship and proof of concept were already done.
(VDI 2.0 did let you run VDI VMs from Azure, but you had to create and manage the Azure infrastructure. In that situation, it was just hosted VDI.)
Deploying desktops on cloud platforms has proved to be challenging, especially for companies that don’t have the resources to deliver traditional VDI. If you don’t have resources to dedicate to on-premises deployments, you probably also don’t have resources to dedicate to learning the ins and outs of a certain cloud platform. That’s where DaaS 2.0 comes in. What we have here is not simply Workspot’s cloud management plus some Azure instances. We have a DaaS platform that’s owned, implemented and managed by Workspot that also incorporates all the features of VDI 2.0. In fact, since they share the management plane, you can manage both VDI 2.0 and DaaS 2.0 from the same place. You never have to deal with Azure.
What’s more, DaaS 2.0 isn’t just stopping at giving you an empty shell of a desktop. They also taking on the burden of managing images, templates, networking, security, and even application/OS updates.
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