Comparing VDI On-Premise and VDI On The Cloud: Here’s What You Should Know

Why is VDI on the cloud so popular? What is the reason behind its increased adoption?

VDI on the cloud, or VDI in general, is imperative to industries due to increased remote workspaces. The demand for VDI has risen drastically since the pandemic started because it equips us to execute business operations and maintain workflows remotely.

The market size of Desktop as a Service (or VDI on the Cloud) may reach USD 11 billion in the next five years. Back in 2018, this market was only USD 2 billion.

However, when you are finally moving towards this advanced technology, which one should you choose: DaaS or VDI? Is in-house VDI better than DaaS? Can DaaS optimize your budget?

Let’s find out the answers to the same. In this article, we have explained DaaS vs. VDI.

What Is VDI On-Premise?

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure is a process of desktop virtualization on a centralized server. These virtual desktops are hosted on a centralized data center to offer users seamless access. The end-users utilize virtual desktops in place of physical PCs to execute their work. While physical devices are still required to open a virtual desktop, this virtual PC’s resources, storage, applications, and data are on the central server. This means employees can open virtual PCs on any device.

Here’s what you get with VDI on-premise:

• Centralized support
• Operational efficiency
• Simpler accessibility
• BYOD support
• Better security
• Enhanced productivity
• High mobility

What Is VDI On The Cloud?

Desktop as a Service is a type of VDI implementation, but we use cloud servers in place of on-premise centralized servers. Now, these cloud servers are redundant and geographically isolated from one another. In other words, VDI providers offer virtual desktops on the cloud so that users can access them remotely.

Here’s what you get with VDI on the cloud:

• Reduced desktop costs
• Simplified management
• Better business continuity
• Scalability and agility
• BYOD support
• Enhanced productivity

DaaS vs. VDI: Differences To Explore

We have already explored the definitions of DaaS and VDI. Let’s map the differences in DaaS vs. VDI:

Costs

The cost of DaaS vs. VDI is one of the major differentiating factors for selecting the proper business implementation. During VDI on-premise deployment, you need to look after the upfront scaling, infrastructure, and management costs. There’s additional hassle of ongoing upgrades, maintenance of machines, and data backups.

In the case of VDI on the cloud, the capital expenses are low. You only need to manage your endpoint devices, and everything else is entirely handled by the cloud VDI provider. The capital expenses, in this case, reduce significantly.

Security

Almost every organization handles business-critical and confidential data. On-premise VDI includes taking security measures to secure this data. You can easily use multi-factor authentication, hardware/software firewalls, Intrusion Detection and Prevention, and regular auditing to secure your desktops.

However, when we compare DaaS vs. VDI in this case, DaaS helps you handle these requirements without challenges. VDI cloud providers implement the same security measures. The VDI provider’s team ensures optimum desktop security.

Further, taking backups on-premise for business continuity means creating different servers for data storage. On the same server, business continuity has several loopholes. Any cyber-attack or disaster on your server washes away your backup files as well.

The VDI providers have many servers that help replicate backups to different servers on the cloud. This means that business continuity is better with cloud VDI.

Latency

If you look at it, then on-premise VDI has a range. As you move your endpoints far away, your connectivity experiences latency. Therefore, your in-house employees can still eliminate latency, but remote workers can’t. If you use cloud VDI or DaaS, you have better options to diversify your cloud usage and reduce latency for remote and in-office workers.

Uptime

What does uptime for on-premise VDI look like?

In on-premise VDI, disruptions to the servers mean downtime. Your IT team needs time to fix the server, which takes precious efficiency-hours from employees.

DaaS vs. VDI, in this case, inclines towards DaaS, as it helps you maintain 99.99% uptime. The cloud provider has more than one server that allows access to data regardless of disruptions.

Scalability

VDI deployments are easier to scale when compared to on-premise computers. With VDI, you can increase hardware, resources, and storage to improve the performance and resources of virtual desktops.

On the cloud, the cloud provider also achieves scalability similarly. However, you don’t need to set up the entire infrastructure for this. Further, this is an on-demand increase in storage and resources. You can also reduce your storage and resources whenever you want.

Customization

Setting up your own VDI means you can fully control the hardware and software elements of the VDI. You can fully customize your virtual desktops from provisioning and load balancing to desktop configuration.

On the cloud, too, this is possible. While you can’t directly control the load balancing and provisioning of the cloud server, you can still customize your resources. This means from configuration to performance, everything can be internally discussed and implemented as is.

Deployment

Your IT team sets up On-premise VDI. So, when a new employee joins your company, you have to deploy a virtual desktop for them. The entire deployment from start to finish is achieved by you, which gives you better control over the process. But, this also means spending more time on the task.

DaaS deployments are via the VDI cloud provider. You can deploy PCs and improve resources on-demand without actually working for it. This consumes much less time and helps you focus on other essential activities, such as onboarding the employee.

Summary

DaaS vs. VDI, which one is better? The final choice between DaaS vs. VDI depends on your needs. As a business, you have to evaluate your requirements, understand what type of solution may work better for your business, and then decide. Both DaaS and VDI are the same technology offered in different forms. If you need business continuity, remote accessibility, and other cloud benefits, you can use DaaS. Simply find an optimum VDI cloud provider for high ROI.