The Future of Remote Work | Why you Need DaaS
The trend of remote working is here to stay. With the current advancements in tech, remote work is not only just an option but an optimal choice considering both the company and the employee. This is due to the shared and mutual benefits that remote working consists of.
The allure of being able to work from anywhere provided you have access to basic tech is understandable from the employee's POV, but how does remote work strategically offer a better proposition from the company’s perspective?
Well, it’s financial.
The company gets to save and cut a significant amount of costs with remote work.
This is all well and good, but what about the hassle of computing resources? Is it not a hassle to access the company resources?
Well, yes, but it doesn’t have to be.
In this article let us discuss the financial benefits and the way to tackle the nuances that arise from remote working. The tools and solutions that are available for this purpose and how managed IT services can help your company mainstream remote working.
Embracing Desktop-as-a-Service
During the pandemic, remote working wasn’t a choice but became the norm. This was especially difficult for non-tech businesses who had been used to the usual in-office IT infrastructure and struggled to adapt to the changing circumstances of the uncertain global scenario.
The immediate solution that the majority of the firms employed was the reliance on Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to facilitate remote work. But the fact is that there are numerous shortcomings of VPN for this purpose. In fact, VPNs aren’t designed to cater to an entire workforce having access to a company’s IT infrastructure.
DaaS is a solution designed for the purpose of enabling hassle-free remote working setup.
What exactly is DaaS? And in what way is it better suited as a remote work enabler?
Let us discuss the shortcomings of VPNs first and later make an assessment of DaaS in comparison with VPNs.
The VPN Conundrum
VPNs were designed as a contingency plan. You might be wondering what that means. Well, they allow employees to access office resources from any remote location. But that’s great, right? This is the barrier to remote work that VPN tech already solves. Why do we need DaaS?
The sudden transition to full-time remote work for many businesses exposed the inherent limitations of VPNs.
Imagine this:
A firm with 40 users simultaneously connecting to their office computers through a VPN. The VPN route typically involves multiple hops. From the home computer to the internet, then to a firewall, then to the office's internet, and then finally, to the office computer. The result? An unreliable connection that is extremely slow. How slow? It’s agonizing! With that many users, simultaneously trying to access via the VPN, it results in a painstakingly slow access that takes up to ten minutes to even establish the connection.
Is this only about speed? You may be thinking that for a smaller team, this might not be that much of an issue. But you would be wrong to think so!
There’s also very limited functionality that VPNs have to offer. You can’t use a dual-screen setup nor can you print your documents as well. Don’t even think about being able to make customizations to your display.
As much as this is true for software components, it works the same way for hardware components as well. Essentially, reliance on multiple individual building blocks linearly increases the attack vectors associated with the application. From hardware components manufactured in different parts of the world to open-source software-maintained communities everywhere, the attack membrane expands. All the attackers need to do is, just find the weakest link in the intricate supply chain to launch a full-fledged attack.
Another direct consequence of a complex network of supply chains is vulnerability detection. For instance, a compromised update from a trusted vendor would typically bypass the standard security checks. This makes identifying and isolating a threat challenging and unique.
Enter Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS)
DaaS is a cloud-based solution that is targeted at the remote work revolution. This is done by carefully designing the solution considering the requirements and necessities of remote work.
It is Seamless and Flexible.
When you log into your laptop from home using DaaS, you are transported to an environment that is exactly identical to your office setup. From the Windows 10 OS to your applications, the shared drives, and all the files that you deal with, everything is as is with DaaS. You can customize your display, utilize dual screens, and even print documents from your remote location. Basically, from a computational perspective, you’ll find no change with respect to the environment that you’re used to.
Cloud-Based Efficiency
Once an attacker gains access, the purpose of the exploit is performed. Be it, stealing data, corrupting the targeted system making specific features disfunctional, or even gaining access to other parts of the victim’s network through lateral movement. By using various mediums of exploitation, things like credential harvesting, source code theft, intellectual property theft, or other forms of cyber espionage are committed.
Oracle Cloud
Atomic North leverages the power of Oracle Cloud, a cloud platform that ensures security, redundancy, and computational capacity. With Oracle, your team can maintain productivity even when working remotely. You would virtually need no support at all and if you do, that is included with the primary per-user cost that gives access to your DaaS solution!
It’s Scalable
If everything goes as planned, the impact of a successful supply chain attack is far-reaching and long-lasting. The scale of damages and the security implications are very vast. Such attacks have the potential to incur financial losses in the magnitude of ten and sometimes up to hundreds of millions of dollars.
The market size of supply chain management including the cost of dealing with supply chain breaches, was valued at approximately USD 25.7 billion in 2023. It’s estimated that this figure will reach USD 78.5 billion by 2033.
Moreover, as per Gartner Research, by 2025, 45% of organizations worldwide will have experienced attacks on their software supply chains. This represents a three-fold increase from 2021. There’s also a 26% increase in the number of supply chain breaches between 2022 and 2023.
Predictable Pricing
At this point, you have understood all the nuances pertaining to the reasons why DaaS solution is something that you need. We’re certain that you’re thinking if you should actually restructure your operations and make it remote even!
Actually, you haven’t gotten to the best part yet. Remember at the beginning of this article, “it’s financial” was the answer to the question “How does remote work strategically offer a better proposition from the company’s POV”. Let us explore the strategic pricing.
With DaaS, you gain access to a comprehensive suite of services that includes everything from antivirus, spam filters, remote and onsite support, and cloud desktop hosting, to licensing. All of this is conveniently wrapped up into a single per-user monthly fee. You never have to bother about IT infrastructure upgrades and planning ever again.
The Future is in the Cloud
Remote work is here to stay. Even post-pandemic.
With DaaS and the cloud, businesses of all sizes can enjoy:
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Enhanced performance and reliability.
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Built-in security and data protection.
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A consistent user experience and desktop environment from any location.
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Access to all business applications and files.
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Transparent, per-user pricing as an operational expense.
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Expert remote and onsite support.