Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) and Workplace-as-a-Service (WaaS)

Parag Arora, VP & MD, South East Asia, Korea and India subcontinent, Citrix, tells us about DaaS and WaaS in today's context.

What is the significance and the demand of DaaS and WaaS post-lockdown?

With the pandemic entirely changing the way business is conducted, companies are taking extra steps to build up a remote infrastructure that complements the new way of working. Digitization projects that support flexible working have undoubtedly gained momentum over the last year. Solution providers too, are continuously innovating so as to meet the changing requirements and streamline processes as much as possible. As a result of this, technologies like Workspace-as-a-Service (WaaS) and Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) have become natural components of modern IT infrastructures. Its significance and growing adoption stem from its key benefits – ensuring business continuity by helping customers have a more agile environment to scale up and down as needed, and enhancing overall employee satisfaction, productivity and effectiveness. At Citrix, we saw a significant surge in demand for our workspace solutions last year and we expect this to continue even in the post-pandemic world. There is an evident transformation in the thinking among customers who are now increasingly welcoming cloud services and holistic digitization projects with a focus on employee experience.

Do you think technologies like Daas/WaaS worked in favour of businesses amidst the pandemic-related shift of jobs to the home office?

Due to the pandemic, digitisation projects that facilitated remote working quickly gained momentum over the last year. At first, business had to ensure that this was done as quickly as possible to ensure business continuity. After the initial “digital shock”, leaders soon realised the need to have a digital workspace that doesn’t just get work done but also offers a conducive environment for employees to collaborate, communicate, and grow in the long run. Technologies like Workspace-as-a-Service and Desktop-as-a-Service offered the perfect solution - they not only enable flexibility but also have the ability to help businesses scale up and down quickly, as and when required.

Leaders are now increasingly looking to adopt a simplified desktop management solution that delivers access to virtual apps and desktops to any device securely from anywhere without being burdened by complexity and capital investment. Solution providers are also helping customers design and architect their digital environment in a way that meets their specific needs. Over the last year, we’ve seen countless companies that have been able to successfully transition to a remote of flexible work model thanks to Citrix solutions. And WaaS and DaaS has been at the heart of these transformations.

The correct implementation and strategy that can make DaaS and WaaS successful

For a DaaS solution to be successful, it is very important for it to be simple so that anyone with any level of IT experience can deploy it easily. This comes in handy especially during a situation like the pandemic where businesses and employees are trying hard to transition their work models and adapt to the new normal. Then, it needs to be robust enough to grow and scale with your business. The solution also needs to provide an optimum user experience to everyone across the business. Employees who are now working remotely, collaborating across geographies, and using multiple tools and tactics to get work done, expect ease in doing their work and a seamless desktop experience.

Citrix Managed Desktops solution is both simple to manage and provides the flexibility to meet the needs of a business now and in the future. It gives the workforce the high-performance experience they need to get their work done and to stay productive from anywhere, on any device.

With Citrix providing the infrastructure management as well as updates, patching, and resources to host the workloads, our customers find it easy to deploy apps and desktops globally. The cloud infrastructure also enables customers to pay for services based on their consumption, instead of investing large amounts of capital on servers, networking, and storage.