AWS opens its desktop as a service to the market, joins the growing DaaS fray

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1 AWS opens its desktop as a service to the market, joins the growing DaaS fray Analyst: Michael Coté Eric Hanselman 4 Apr, 2014 Announced this past November, AWS has opened up its desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) offering for general use. Administrators can couple the DaaS suite with their corporate directories and networks, serving up two profiles of desktops, each charged on a monthly basis, running over PCoIP with a file syncing client. The 451 Take When it comes to making things cheap, few companies have the zeal and credibility of Amazon. While new, mostly non-microsoft devices are rapidly changing and fragmenting the end-user device market, there's still a palpable need to support existing Windows applications. DaaS seems like a viable 'green screen' strategy for supporting these corporate applications on new devices. While some of the early reviews of Amazon WorkSpaces have surfaced, the usual bucket of 1.0 hiccups, like speed and locale shenanigans, will undoubtedly be ironed out. The DaaS space is just emerging as a broad market, and we predict many players on this scene, each hopefully figuring out new and unique ways to differentiate. Context AWS announced its DaaS offering, Amazon WorkSpaces, in November of 2013, followed by an invite-only beta. The service recently became generally available right after VMware's Horizon DaaS (built on the company's Desktone acquisition) was opened to the public. As part of AWS, Copyright The 451 Group 1

2 WorkSpaces can be looked at as another slice of the IT market. AWS is looking to apply its low pricing and public cloud delivery strategy to desktop management. We look at DaaS as a hopeful new delivery method for the virtual desktop market that's drafting off two trends: better controlling the back-end costs of virtual desktops with public cloud and satisfying the 'bring your own device' needs of the evolving white-collar workforce. Enterprises have legions of Windows-based applications that are not (yet?) economically feasible to translate to native mobile/tablet GUIs or mobile applications; these applications still need to be delivered to and used by employees. And while the back-end costs of delivering virtual desktops in-house have always been a bugbear of the virtual desktop industry (as vendors like GreenBytes and Dell will attest to as they illustrate how their storage and server technologies finally make it affordable), public cloud-based back ends, with their continually dropping prices and operational hyper-efficiency, look to finally cheapen the virtual desktop back end. Products Amazon WorkSpaces focuses on simplicity rather than infinite configurability. There are just two profiles: Standard and Performance. Both deliver Windows 7 desktops (via Windows Server 2008 R2 with remote desktop services to get around Windows 7 licensing issues), each with Internet Explorer 9, Firefox, 7-Zip and Adobe Acrobat. The Standard profile has one virtual CPU, 3.75GB of memory and 50 gigs of persistent storage. The Performance profile adds a virtual CPU, comes with 7.5GB of memory, and 100GB of persistent storage. Each is charged monthly, per seat, at $35 for Standard and $60 for Performance. This pricing is all-in, inclusive of storage and bandwidth. For $15 more a month, you can add a Microsoft Office Professional 2010 and Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security Services installation to either plan. Users can, of course, install their own software, bringing their own licensing as needed (admins can turn off local admin rights, which are on by default, for installing software). Pricing is month-to-month with no commitments or minimums. The service also comes with the free WorkSpaces Sync client, which can be installed on Windows and OS X desktops to synchronize files to and from the desktop that are stored in the 'my documents' folder. These files are also backed up to Amazon S3 encrypted, with promises of an absurd amount of '9s' in reliability (11 of them). Presumably, this is not only for keeping files in sync between different desktops, but also migrating files to the WorkSpaces desktop. It does introduce an interesting BYOD concern: copying otherwise controlled corporate data to personal devices that may not be blessed by the enterprise security monks. While there is no remote functionality in sync, Copyright The 451 Group 2

3 paranoid administrators can turn this functionality off. Users must download a WorkSpaces client for Windows, OS X, ios, Android or Kindle Fire. The client uses Teradici PCoIP, which uses encrypted video streams to deliver the desktop experience, meaning data is never actually sent to end-user devices except through screenshots and the trusty analog loophole for those desperate enough. Intended for corporate use, WorkSpaces also has administrative functionality. Companies can synchronize with Active Directory through the use of a VPC and gateway scheme, which allows for policy and other AD management. Admins can select which users have WorkSpaces access, and users can use their corporate credentials to log in to WorkSpaces. To prevent the expensing nightmare of having individuals pay for each desktop, administrators can send out invites to employees. Indeed, users don't need AWS accounts to log in to WorkSpaces, helpfully avoiding associating all that book-buying with their corporate identities. For keeping software up to date, Windows Update is turned on by default, but can be disabled with AD policies. Administrators can also configure VPC and VPN to connect desktops to their corporate networks, giving WorkSpaces users access to services behind the firewall. While keyboards and audio out are supported on the actual physical device, USB access is not, and printing must be done through AD-configured network printers. Currently, Amazon is delivering WorkSpaces from two US-based regions: US East and US West. Target customers AWS presumably is targeting all segments of the market. That said, DaaS offerings seem especially appealing to small and midmarket companies that rely on Windows for their desktop infrastructure (along with Active Directory) and want a turnkey way of delivering desktops without caring too much about detailed control of the desktop images. The limited configurability and enterprise-grade knobs may turn off larger enterprise users who feel the need to turn as many knobs as possible on the IT they manage. WorkSpaces is targeting a desktop model that is a bit different than what has been typical of VDI to date. Citrix, VMware, and the enabling technologies from companies like Unidesk and RES have focused on a managed desktop experience. In these scenarios, one of IT's goals is often tightly controlling applications that can be deployed on desktops, as well as controlling the data used and generated by those applications. For example, you might want outsourced engineers to use your CAD/CAM tools, but not get access to the underlying data and IP, which could be stolen. Copyright The 451 Group 3

4 While there is AD integration in WorkSpaces, the expectation seems to be that the desktop image isn't closely managed at least not by Amazon or any services that it offers. In our analysis, this implies that it's looking at a more generic desktop model, where users need a Windows desktop for local application compatibility, rather than corporate integration and compliance. This won't be as interesting to organizations with larger investments in.net applications (one of the larger pools of 'legacy' applications that virtual desktops can help support) with heavy network needs. In this case, a serious network investment could also be a stumbling block. Competition VMware recently launched its own DaaS service, Horizon DaaS, based on its recent Desktone acquisition. VMware's pricing starts at $35 per user per month (going up to $50 for a higher-performance profile), with a minimum of 50 seats. Citrix has been selling DaaS software to service providers for some time. Companies like Dell, Dimension Data, Fujitsu, IBM, NaviSite, NEC and Time Warner Cable use VMware's Desktone DaaS system to sell their own DaaS offerings. As a different approach to the problem set, HP sees Moonshot servers as being a nonvirtual option for companies that want to avoid the management and tuning needed with VDI. And then there are other DaaS providers, like tucloud, dincloud and tocario. There are also several DaaS enablers, such as VDIworks, Virtual Bridges, MokaFive, DeskStream, Leostream, Ericom and Ulteo. Microsoft has been working on its own offering with Project Mohro. Numecent has a sort of 'hybrid DaaS' offering to accomplish similar goals. SWOT Analysis Strengths Weaknesses With its massive public cloud empire, AWS is deployed globally, and certainly has the credibility and skills to run a public cloud hosted virtual desktop service. The company also relishes cutthroat pricing, which will likely help in a commodity like desktop management. While AWS is an old hand at IaaS in public cloud, managing and delivering desktops is new for the company. Competitors are much more experienced and known in this field. Opportunities Threats The dueling trends of BYOD and decreasing costs of raw infrastructure that public cloud provides will likely create a favorable, if not great, market pull for DaaS. Longtime incumbents are aggressively operating in the DaaS market, if not entering it, like VMware, with many existing DaaS vendors that have had time to perfect the go-to-market strategy and technology needed. Copyright The 451 Group 4

5 Reproduced by permission of The 451 Group; This report was originally published within 451 Research's Market Insight Service. For additional information on 451 Research or to apply for trial access, go to: Copyright The 451 Group 5