How to Work Remotely?
There are several options to work remotely. Much of depends on the IT infrastructure that you have in place. Most businesses have their entire IT infrastructure on-premises.
While other businesses have adopted to a private, public or hybrid cloud. Businesses which operate in an on-premises infrastructure will find challenges when working remotely.
These challenges include security, remote access to computers and applications, printing and most importantly, user experience.
What is On-Premises?
Having on-premise model means maintaining infrastructure on your own, which directly reflects in investment for servers, software and technical personnel. In that case, the complete risk of security vulnerability and failure lies with the organization.
What is the Cloud?
Simply put, cloud computing is the delivery of IT services such as servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence over the Internet (“the cloud”). Cloud computing offers faster innovation, flexible resources, business continuity and economies of scale.
You typically pay only for cloud services you use, helping you lower your operating costs, run your infrastructure more efficiently, and scale as your business needs change. To learn more about the different options for cloud computing, see my previous blog “What is Cloud Computing”.
Is it Remotely Possible?
Cloud computing resources are designed to be accessed remotely using WEB browsers, virtualized applications, containers or client-server applications. Users can access these services seamlessly and securely on almost any device, anytime and anywhere there is internet access.
Alternatively, on-premises resources are designed to be accessed within the local environment. Most applications are not designed to be accessed remotely. Even if they were, security would be a major concern.
Let’s look at a few technologies to make this happen:
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
VDI is a term used to describe users accessing a full desktop Operating System (OS) environment remotely. The concept of VDI is to store and run desktop workloads including a Windows client operating system, applications, and data in a server-based virtual machine (VM) in a data center to allow a user to access the desktop using any device they choose.
Remote Desktop Services (RDS)
RDS is where multiple users share the same OS and applications running on a single or multiple server(s). These resources are delivered via shared sessions on the RDS server. Software installation, configuration and updating is easier to control when the end user’s desktops run in a centralized datacenter, rather than in each end user’s PC. Users can access RDS applications from any they choose.
Remote Access Server (RAS)
Remote Access Servers act as a secured gateway to all your desktops, applications and resources regardless of their physical locations. Users can use a bring your own device (BYOD) from anywhere, at anytime to access VDI desktops, RDS applications or any other resource regardless if they are located on-premises or in a public, private or hybrid cloud,
How to start working remotely?
If you want to implement a work from home (WFH) policy, please contact us. We can guide you through the process and help you find the right cloud deployment and services for your needs. We have years of experience implementing VDI, RDS and RAS solutions for our valued clients.
