Computer and IT upgrades were in the past considered normal and unavoidable operating overhead. It was considered necessary overhead by some companies to completely replace equipment as well as maintain a large in house IT staff. However with the growing movement toward Desktop As A Service – DaaS, upgrades may become only small extras to be done when convenient.

Desktop as a service can be delivered in many forms and for many reasons but it is becoming a popular means to store data and desktops remotely so that an employee can utilize the desktop as well as the applications present on it from any machine they happen to be on. Since the applications are present on another computer and the processing is done remotely the computer used to access the desktop can be as light or basic as is practical.

Instead of upgrading all the computers in a company, with DaaS access to the remote desktop can be achieved through smart phones, thin clients or a home PC. This allows the frequent traveler to keep up on necessary reports just as if they were at the office. It can increase IT department’s efficiency or even eliminate the need for them entirely depending upon the company.

There are several excellent and very attractive features to using the DaaS model foremost of which is probably the savings in cost hardware. Secondary to that is that all applications are hosted on a remote machine with the desktop so deploying new applications is usually much less expensive. The safety of data may be more assured as the data is off site and backed up by the desktop hosting service.

However, there are also some concerns that may occur to those considering a DaaS model. One is that security is no longer overseen in house and the company must rely on the hosting service to manage their security. Peripherals can be more difficult to set up from a remotely hosted desktop and connecting to a computer may no longer be as simple as attaching a cable. Some applications do not run as well on a remote desktop such as multimedia applications that depend upon the computer accessing them to perform their best.

There are several factors that may well balance the scales and when considering a remote desktop it may be wise to remember those. Multimedia applications are less frequently used in a business environment and normally are of less concern. Printers and peripheral challenges can usually be overcome with the aid of the server company who has experience in dealing with those challenges. The server companies also usually higher security experts and their security may well be better than that of the company whom they serve.

While there are some potential negative factors to consider on the whole more and more businesses are finding the positives more compelling. The cost savings on IT and hardware upgrades while still maintaining top notch services and applications has swayed many larger businesses. The DaaS model may not be the ideal model for all businesses but is certainly proving valuable for many.