Desktops as a Service® (DaaS®): Optimizing Service Provider Assets to Deliver New, Value-Added Service

Service providers are operating in a highly competitive market. To garner more business from existing customers and gain new customers, service providers need to offer new, value-added services. However, rather than investing in additional infrastructure to enable new services, they should be able to leverage the data center capacity and connectivity assets they already own.

The industry trend towards desktop virtualization presents service providers with a tremendous opportunity. Enterprises are looking toward centralized virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) models as a way to eliminate the labor and costs of owning and managing capital-intensive desktops, and to improve business efficiencies and capabilities. But they are having significant difficulties building and deploying VDI internally. Service providers can offer subscription-based virtual desktops as a service (DaaS), enabling these customers to quickly implement and benefit from DaaS' cost, manageability and security improvements.

The advantages are clear:

• Provide an offering that enterprises want but aren't equipped to implement: Corporations recognize the value that virtual desktops can provide and are already planning to use the technology. IDC estimates there will be more than 20 million corporate virtual desktops by 2011. However, adoption is hindered by the complexities inherent in internally-developed virtual desktop infrastructures. Service providers can remove the barriers to enterprise implementation by offering virtual desktops as a service – providing desktop virtualization and related data center management expertise that's difficult for enterprises to handle in-house.
• Leverage existing assets: Service providers have made significant investments in data center infrastructure and networks. By providing DaaS, you can maximize utilization of your data center space, connectivity and power assets, potentially yielding a much higher ROI.
• Capture new service revenue: Provide a high-margin and repeatable value-added service to existing and new customers. Using Desktone technology to deliver hosted virtual desktops as a subscription service enables you to provide highly scalable, carrier-class DaaS while efficiently managing your infrastructure and maintaining service level agreements with your customers.

Desktone helps service providers realize these benefits and accelerate time-to-revenue by providing the only end-to-end virtual desktop platform designed specifically to enable hosted, subscription-based DaaS:

• Architected to enable fast on-ramp to DaaS and to support distributed operations of a network-delivered service.
• Multi-tenant: Enables service providers to achieve better utilization of equipment to support multiple customers.
• Management: Service providers centrally manage the DaaS infrastructure without disrupting customer environments – and while enabling customers to retain complete control over their virtual desktops.
• Cost-effective scaling: Easily scalable with no marginal costs for expansion, regardless of whether service providers are supporting 10,000, 100,000 or 500,000 users.
• Seamless integration into service provider's existing operational support systems and back-office systems.
• Flexible service offerings: Accommodates different service offerings, from basic to premium, based on the service provider's business model.
• Flexible operational model: Desktone solution can be hosted on customer premises or in a service provider's data center.