In simple terms, a Hosted Desktop is a Cloud-based virtual environment that enables users to access those important work documents and applications from anywhere in the world, provided they have an Internet connection. These days with mobile connectivity so widespread and readily available this means that access could be gained from virtually any location in the world and at any time. This allows your business to remain as productive as possible even when major events occur affecting normal in-office activities.
By leveraging the power of hosted desktops, you can achieve improved system reliability, greater flexibility, and higher productivity.
By having a virtual desktop accessible from any device, anytime and anywhere, you can ensure that remote employees can stay connected and finish more work quickly. We offer platforms such as Citrix for seamless integration with multiple devices so remote employees can easily switch from one device to another without worrying about compatibility issues.
From the low intensity software used by an administrator to the intense CAD and Adobe Creative Suite users, our NVIDIA solution offers a truly powerful GPU led Hosted Desktop Solution to let your high-end users continue to work anywhere they need to.
Hosted desktops allow employees to securely access their desktops from anywhere, as long as they have an internet connection. This means as employers you can provide secure access to sensitive company data and applications and help prevent any security risks associated with data breaches. Your data is secured in ISO 9001, 27001 & 27017 accredited data centres. It's now becoming more and more common for businesses to carry out Due Diligence with their Suppliers and if your business is required to complete a due diligence request by a potential client, then you can be sure that this solution will cover many of the Technical requirements.
Hosted desktops are more cost-efficient than traditional in-house systems because they don’t require any additional hardware or maintenance costs. Also, hosted desktops are cloud-based so they don’t need a physical presence.
Our Hosted desktops are subscription-based meaning you only pay per user required. You can scale up or down as the needs change and take advantage of advanced features without buying them.
One of the primary benefits of hosted desktops for remote workforces is improved disaster recovery. Virtual desktops provide you with a backup plan and protect data in an emergency or natural disaster. This can help prevent long-term losses and minimise downtime.
Our Hosted desktops provide backups of data stored on the system, allowing it to be restored in a crash. Therefore if your primary system goes down, we can easily switch to another device and continue working without interruption.
With hosted desktops, we can centrally manage your environment from a single location. This reduces the need for complex and manual configurations, allowing us to respond quickly to changing business needs. Centralised IT management also ensures that users have access to the latest updates and security patches as soon as they become available. Furthermore, it simplifies upgrading hardware and software, providing you with more efficient and cost-effective solutions.
Ok, so the Hosted Desktop solution in the cloud is already secured as detailed above, but what about the local device being used to connect?
As mentioned, you can connect from any device and anywhere, however depending on your industry, there may be other concerns in relation to the local device.
For example, the financial and insurance industry, security is a critical and constant concern. Customer data must be protected to meet regulatory requirements, while also ensuring operational efficiency through high performance and high availability.
So, to meet these kinds of challenges we offer a solution tailored to meet your business or industry requirements with the IGEL OS.
IGEL provides an Endpoint Operating System designed for Remote Working. Available either as a Portable USB Disk or by turning ANY x86-64 device (like HP \ Dell \ Lenovo, etc) into a fully functioning read-only endpoint for Hosted Desktops ensuring a secure chain of trust from the employee through to cloud-hosted apps and workloads.
Whether that be on a business owned or on users’ own device (BYOD), IGELs OS immediately minimises endpoint attack surfaces and complements a zero-trust model.
And by running IGEL on your endpoints, you can:
N.B. Although this is not a necessary requirement to run the Hosted Desktop solution, we are able to implement for those businesses requiring or looking for the ultimate secure solution.
Is your system up to BRASS?
Backed Up; Reliable; Accessible from anywhere; Secure and Scalelable.
If the answer is NO - let us help you transition to one that is!
Please reach us at contact@affinitysmart.com if you cannot find an answer to your question.
Generally, we offer this service for FREE if you commit for a period of 12months. Our on-boarding process consists of a needs analysis, project scoping and creation of your new cloud-based system, all completely free, whatever it may be.
There are small additional per-user charges, such as migrating all your emails or data from off your old system and onto the new one. However, we try to keep these costs to a minimum and will always be upfront with you beforehand.
In Most Cases YES.
Functionally, a virtual machine is very close to a physical machine. It can perform almost all the same tasks that a physical machine can, and often faster than a physical machine with identical spec. There are a few exceptions (such as certain versions of Microsoft 365) that are prohibited from running on virtual desktops due to licensing agreements.
Mostly, yes, depending on the task and spec of the machine. A cloud-based virtual machine is also superior thanks to its reliability, security and zero need for maintenance. Additional points include its scalability, no capital layout, space saving and a reduced need for an in-house IT team – Affinity Smart IT provides IT Support.
Another factor to consider is internet speed. You would usually have between 30-60 Mbps internet at home, with an office user needing between 70-150 Mbps. The per-machine internet speed at our data centres is between 350-550 Mbps – quite a difference!
It’s true that for certain applications (such as intensive graphic/ 3D design) an ordinary VM might be somewhat slower than a custom-built physical machine. However, we offer bespoke solutions for some of our customers (such as architects and designers) where the VM is equipped with a graphics card as well. These machines can match or beat the performance of a physical machine with similar spec.
In short, Yes and No.
For security reasons, we prefer not allowing customers to install their own apps, but at the same time, we understand the occasional need for customers to do this. There are two ways in which we can handle such requests:
Yes it does!
In essence you just need the Microsoft 365 Pro Plus; Premium or E3 license. We also provide a solution that includes the Office Suite and an email address on a dedicated Exchange platform.
Yes! Your shiny new virtual machine is protected by round-the-clock security guards, and comes with military-grade encryption (2048 -bit), military-grade firewalls and banking-level security (IL4). AND on this solution we work with G-Cloud 12 security standard partners.
A virtual desktop can be accessed via any device that has internet connectivity and Remote Desktop Service (RDS) – which means most smartphones and tablets, as well as PC, Linux, Chromebook and Mac.
If your equipment previously ran on the machine from which you are running your virtual desktop, then it will also work on the virtual desktop. Our team can assist you with any setup that may be required. Please be sure to mention all the devices you would like to connect when you have your project scoping meeting with your assigned project manager.
This solution provides a 24/7 business-critical support with full support between the hours of 9am-5.30pm Monday to Friday (excluding public holidays).
In short: nothing
We offer free upgrades for both Windows and Office, although only upon request. The reason for this is that sometimes your current software, especially custom software, might not work properly on newer versions of Windows or not interface correctly with Office.
Before upgrading, we will perform a thorough compatibility assessment, run some tests, and create a rollback plan in case things go wrong. This enables us to easily restore your system to the way it was before in the event that the upgrades were not compatible.
Find out how our Hosted Desktop Solutions offer your business increased accessibility, reliability and security.
Affinity Smart Ltd
+44 (0)20 3384 4859 | contact@affinitysmart.com
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