A hosted desktop is a product set within the larger

cloud-computing Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to ISO. Essential characteristics ...

sphere generally delivered using a combination of technologies including

hardware virtualization Hardware virtualization is the virtualization of computers as complete hardware platforms, certain logical abstractions of their componentry, or only the functionality required to run various operating systems. Virtualization emulates the hardw ...

and some form of remote connection software,

Citrix XenApp Citrix Virtual Apps (formerly WinFrame, MetaFrame, Presentation Server and XenApp) is an application virtualization software produced by Citrix Systems that allows Windows applications to be accessed via individual devices from a shared server o ...

or Microsoft

Remote Desktop Services Remote Desktop Services (RDS), known as Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008 and earlier, is one of the components of Microsoft Windows that allow a user to initiate and control an interactive session on a remote computer or virtual machine ...

being two of the most common. Processing takes place within the provider's datacenter environment with traffic between the datacenter and the client being primarily display updates, mouse movements and keyboard activity (additional traffic will be generated by audio & print jobs). A hosted desktop commonly involves a

browser-based A web application (or web app) is application software that is created with web technologies and runs via a web browser. Web applications emerged during the late 1990s and allowed for the server to dynamically build a response to the request, ...

connection to a

desktop environment In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphi ...

which includes an

office productivity suite Productivity software (also called personal productivity software or office productivity software) is application software used for producing information (such as documents, presentations, worksheets, databases, charts, Information graphics, graph ...

alongside other

desktop applications Application software is any computer program that is intended for end-user use not operating, administering or programming the computer. An application (app, application program, software application) is any program that can be categorized as ...

. The desktop is hosted, run, delivered and supported from a central location, usually a secure data center with high-quality and resilient connections to the Internet/cloud. Cloud Desktop is a term often used to refer to a container of a collection of virtual objects, software, hardware, configurations etc., residing on the cloud, used by a client to interact with remote services and perform computer related tasks. Connecting clients run pre-installed or downloaded viewer applications via one of many

remote desktop protocols In computing, the term remote desktop refers to a software- or operating system feature that allows a personal computer's desktop environment to be run remotely from one system (usually a PC, but the concept applies equally to a server or a sma ...

. Clients can include thin clients, PCs, workstations, mobile and handheld devices running a variety of operating systems such as Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and others. The move towards hosted desktops, of which

virtual desktop infrastructure Desktop virtualization is a software technology that separates the desktop environment and associated application software from the physical client device that is used to access it. Desktop virtualization can be used in conjunction with applicati ...

(VDI) is a subset, is predicted by

Gartner Gartner, Inc. is an American research and advisory firm focusing on business and technology topics. Gartner provides its products and services through research reports, conferences, and consulting. Its clients include large corporations, gover ...

to account for 49 million business desktops by 2013archive
equal to more than 40 percent of the worldwide professional PC market. The development of applications by service providers such as

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

have accelerated this process, as has the evolution of new licensing schemes which allow fee-paying based on a subscription rather than on purchase.

Key characteristics

The centralized nature of hosted desktops can overcome common issues with mobile working, delivery of a common infrastructure across physical sites, disaster recovery, cost control and scaling up/down in timely fashion. Hosted desktop services can be a comparatively simple method for applying outsourcing principles within a business although care is warranted in ensuring service provider quality to ensure compliance, data security and data protection standards meet requirements. A hosted desktop based environment will generally migrate user authentication, file & print services and application delivery and data storage to the cloud making it accessible via secure connections from any internet enabled location. The relatively small bandwidth requirements for a Hosted Desktop means that between 5 & 10 people can connect and work on a standard xDSL broadband, whilst a single user can operate quite effectively on a 3G mobile data connection. Hosted desktops are most often based on a

Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2008, codenamed "Longhorn Server" (alternatives: "Windows Vista Server" or "Windows Server Vista"), is the seventh major version of the Windows NT operating system produced by Microsoft to be released under the Windows Server b ...

utilizing

, often with an additional management layer from vendors like

Citrix Systems Citrix Systems, Inc. is an American multinational cloud computing and virtualization technology company that provides server, application and desktop virtualization, networking, software as a service (SaaS), and cloud computing technologies. ...

Parallels Workstation Parallels Workstation is the first commercial software product released by Parallels, Inc., a developer of desktop and server virtualization software. The Workstation software comprises a virtual machine suite for Intel x86-compatible computers ...

to make personalization easier. Licensing for this type of hosted desktop is provided by the Microsoft Service Provider License Agreement (SPLA), a special type of

end-user license agreement An end-user license agreement or EULA () is a legal contract between a software supplier and a customer or end-user. The practice of selling licenses to rather than copies of software predates the recognition of software copyright, which has ...

. The user rents the appropriate licenses as part of the monthly fee paid to the service provider and receives automatic upgrade rights to the latest version of the software as part of the agreement. Backup and disaster recovery will be handled by the Hosted Desktop vendor; with the best solutions also providing failover to alternate datacenters.

Pricing models

For hosted desktop vendors utilizing VMware and Microsoft technology, charges are normally monthly with a basic charge applied for each user of a hosted desktop and then additional charges for an

, additional data storage and extra applications. Some vendors wrap a suite of the most common applications into product sets to simplify still further.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hosted Desktop Cloud computing

Key characteristics

Pricing models

See also

Notes