Why Companies Should Be Using Amazon WorkSpaces
Adapt To Remote Work with Amazon’s Cloud-Based Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
Over the years remote work has been gaining popularity, and with the recent COVID-19 pandemic, its adoption has only increased. With this trend, businesses require a secure, scalable, and cost-effective solution that enables employees to access their desktops from anywhere, anytime, and on any device. A fully managed, cloud virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) service, Amazon Workspaces provides businesses with a secure and scalable solution for their remote workforce.
WorkSpaces can be integrated with AWS directory services and on premises directory services, which include AWS Simple AD, AWS Managed AD, and on-premises Active Directory. By integrating with these directory services, organizations can leverage their existing user accounts and security policies to manage access to their WorkSpaces environments.
When integrating with directory services, organizations can use group policy objects (GPOs) to enforce security policies. GPOs are a collection of settings that can be applied to user and computer objects in a directory service. GPOs can be used to enforce security policies such as password complexity requirements, account lockout policies, and software installation restrictions. By using GPOs to enforce security policies in a WorkSpaces environment, organizations can ensure that their virtual desktop infrastructure is secure and compliant with industry regulations.
Additionally, disaster recovery and temporary workers are two critical areas where Amazon WorkSpaces shines. Disaster recovery can be a costly and challenging task for businesses, but Amazon WorkSpaces simplifies the process by offering secure access with little down time. Temporary workers can also be a challenge for businesses, but Amazon WorkSpaces makes it easy to provision virtual desktops for them. Once access is no longer required, it’s easy to remove access to keep company data safe.
Benefits of Amazon WorkSpaces
Cost
By leveraging Amazon WorkSpaces, organizations can cut out the requirement for physical desktop systems, which are often costly to purchase, sustain, and modernize. The service also has a pay-per-use pricing framework, allowing businesses to only pay for their actual usage, improving cost management.
Security
The crucial concern around remote work is security. Amazon WorkSpaces provides secure access to corporate data, applications, and documents, safeguarding sensitive data. Since Amazon WorkSpaces is fully managed, AWS ensures that security updates and patches are installed automatically, minimizing the potential for digital threats.
Adaptability
Amazon WorkSpaces provides a flexible solution for remote work, allowing employees to access their desktops from anywhere, at anytime, and through any device.
Related Content
Scalability
The scalability of Amazon Workspaces allows businesses to add or remove the number of virtual desktops as needed. This allows businesses to quickly adapt to changing workforce needs.
Customization
Amazon WorkSpaces provides a customizable desktop environment, permitting workers to access the applications, tools, and data they need to get their job done. This customization guarantees that employees can operate efficiently, no matter where they are.
Dealing With Disaster Recovery
Amazon WorkSpaces embeds disaster recovery into its core functionality, which is an integral advantage for businesses. This is especially vital when considering the unpredictability of issues that might arise, ranging from natural disasters to cyber threats or even unintentional human errors. To combat these potential issues, Amazon WorkSpaces focuses on maintaining the accessibility and security of critical data, applications, and services. It is designed to ensure these can be quickly restored to maintain business continuity.
The architectural design of Amazon WorkSpaces is fault tolerant and highly availability. This is achieved through its use of AWS Regions and Availability Zones, which are important for the health of the system. During the deployment of Amazon WorkSpaces, the Directory Services necessitate the establishment of two subnets, each in a different Availability Zone. The Availability Zones are equipped with automated monitoring systems that detect and replace any failing domain controllers, ensuring seamless operation. Each Workspace environment is dispersed across two Availability Zones, allowing for further resilience. The deployments have two Elastic Block Store (EBS) volumes that are replicated across multiple servers within an Availability Zone. This design not only promotes high availability but more importantly helps in the prevention of data loss.
Amazon WorkSpaces offers several compelling benefits for businesses concerning disaster recovery. The first being its automatic backup feature, which regularly safeguards user data. This provision means that no critical data is lost in the event of a disaster, enabling businesses to quickly restore their data and services. The scalable nature of Amazon WorkSpaces allows businesses to swiftly provision additional virtual desktops during a disaster. This adaptability gives businesses the ability to respond rapidly to evolving disaster recovery requirements.
Temporary Workers
Photo by Mimi Thian on Unsplash
Amazon WorkSpaces is a great option for a company that has temporary workers or contractors. Given the transient nature of such workers’ engagement with the company, it’s crucial to provide them with a work environment that’s easy to set up and equally simple to terminate. With Amazon WorkSpaces, businesses can provision cloud-based virtual desktops in a matter of minutes, providing temporary workers and contractors the tools they need to be productive, without the need for physical hardware or extensive setup time.
Security is always a key concern and as these workers may be using a variety of devices to access company data, including personal devices, ensuring the security of sensitive information is crucial. Amazon WorkSpaces keeps data secure by storing it in AWS, not on the users’ devices. This means that, regardless of the device used, the company’s sensitive data remains protected. Moreover, administrators can easily manage access privileges, ensuring that workers only have access to the data and applications necessary for their role.
The scalable nature of Amazon WorkSpaces also makes it a cost-effective solution for businesses with temporary workers or contractors. Rather than investing in physical desktops or long-term software licenses that may sit idle during periods of low contractor engagement, Amazon WorkSpaces allows businesses to scale their virtual desktops to match their workforce’s size. Workspaces can be added or removed quickly as business needs change, and the pay-as-you-go pricing model means that businesses only pay for the workspaces they use. This ensures that businesses can effectively manage their resources, helping to control costs while still providing the necessary tools for temporary workers and contractors.
Photo by AbsolutVision on Unsplash
The increasing trend of remote work has led to the need for secure, scalable, and cost-effective solutions that enable employees to work from anywhere. Amazon WorkSpaces provides businesses with a reliable and secure solution for their remote workforce. This service not only simplifies the disaster recovery process by offering secure access to corporate data and documents with little downtime, but also makes it easy to provision virtual desktops for temporary workers, ensuring secure access to the applications and data they need. Amazon WorkSpaces is a valuable solution for businesses looking to support their remote workforce with enhanced productivity and security.
Interested to learn more? Visit AWS Workspaces Customers & Partners for real world use cases.
