Desktop-as-a-Service: Now, Near or Never?

Presenter: Brian Gammage

This is a change in approach, not a change in technology.

• What does Desktop-as-a-Service mean?
  
• What issues get solved or introduced with desktop-as-a-service?
  
• How do you deliver Desktop-as-a-Service?
  

"Desktop-as-a-Service is an emerging model for provisioning a user environment."

Four perspectives:

• Contractual View: Negotiated SLAs, cost constraint, outsourcing
  
• Technology View: agility and lower management effort, virtualized delivery
  
• Financial View: centralized procurement, leasing
  
• User View: give me freedom, cloud computing
  

It is a pay-per-use approach to delivering client computing in a scalable fashion across shared infrastructure. Provides capabilities on an as-needed basis. Leverages shared services. Not just applications as a service; not just outsourcing; not just leasing; not just a delivery model. Treating IT assets just as we treat other business assets.

The desktop is the user personality, the software infrastructure and physical infrastructure. It is not the applications. A service approach is about redefining the responsibility and risk.

Costs as a driver, maturing technology as enabler as well as sophisticated, mature management tools.

Support business agility: faster reactive and proactive time to market; rapid redesign of user environment; leverage broad external skills; refocus internal skills.

Improve financial position: share common services across larger user base and lower costs; free up committed capital; shift costs and gain flexibility with financial obligations.

Internal to external provisioning can be time-consuming and costly. Co-ordinating multiple players takes work. Users often don't know exactly what they want. Users may not like the experience. The cloud doesn't solve all the problems. Does the "good enough" baseline change?

How might Desktop-as-a-Service be delivered?

Look at whole lifecycle: acquisition; deployment; operations; support; disposal. Split into categories: user environment, operational platform and devices. It is not a single decision—there are many aspects of the "desktop" that could be delivered as a service. We can look at each of those separate decision points.