What’s the Difference between VDI and DaaS? Another side-by-side comparison
Posted on April 30, 2015
By Lanny Gray, SVP
When people ask for VDI, do they really mean DaaS? That’s the perception I get out in the field whenever people tell me they want a VDI solution.
Just a few weeks ago, writer Rick Delgado published a post that gives a rundown of each, Comparing VDI and Desktop-as-a-Service: Which is the Best Choice?. In it, Delgado notes how tough it can be for organizations to determine which one is better for them – VDI or DaaS.
To me, the challenge boils down to this: people are more familiar with VDI than with Desktop as a Service or DaaS. But really DaaS is a subset of VDI – both give the user a virtual desktop that lives in the Cloud and is accessible anywhere, anytime. It’s just how that desktop is managed, administered and supported that’s different. And what’s right for one company may not be right for the next.
VDI requires a company to have its own infrastructure (hardware) to host those virtual desktops; DaaS puts all of those virtual desktops in the Cloud. So with VDI, a company maintains everything – desktop management, software licensing, security and all of the complexities that accompany the vast infrastructure VDI requires. With DaaS, this is all offloaded to the DaaS provider instead. Easy, eh?
Beyond these basic technical differences, there are differences among DaaS providers as well. For example, at Nuvestack, we provide support for all of our DaaS subscribers, handle licensing, provide key productivity apps including the Microsoft Office suite, take care of migration, and have top-notch security – and this is all included in our base subscription price. It pays to look around though because each DaaS provider’s subscription service is different.
So when the choice is VDI vs. Daas, it really becomes a matter of what an organization wants its IT team to do: manage desktops and troubleshoot or work on meatier projects. A report published last week by Harvard Business Review noted that more than one-half of the Cloud-adopting CIOs it surveyed indicated that virtual and Cloud services are freeing up their IT departments “to focus on more strategic things” – we think this is great side effect of DaaS and something you don’t get with VDI. (By the way, the entire report offers insight into Cloud computing in business today – definitely worth reading).
While VDI may still be the choice for large enterprises with existing, complex infrastructure and infrastructure needs, for small and medium businesses, often the dependability and flexibility that accompanies DaaS is the much better choice.
Want more information on how DaaS can benefit your business? Contact us today.