Hosted Desktop and B.Y.O.D. – as safe as it gets.

According to a new report, more than 60% of Federal Agencies have a “bring your own device” policy for their employees, with more than 44% of Federal Employees already using their own devices at work – claiming it makes them more productive.

In part, a response to a 2011 Executive Order to Agencies to limit the number of devices that are issued to employees, the new report shows that more and more sensitive data is now being accessed and stored on devices that are outside Federal Control. Only slightly less than 30% of the respondents claim to have a mobile device management solution in place to handle remote wipe/lock of lost or stolen devices – raising the spectre of data falling into in appropriate hands.

Much of that risk can be reduced, by the use of Hosted Desktop or Hosted Application technology, since this does not store any data on the device being used to access the Federal Systems.  Communication between the data centres and the device are encrypted using SSL and with the addition of three-factor authentication the employee device can be as secure as anything issued by the Employer.

For more information about Hosted Desktops and why they are the future of IT delivery, contact us

 

SMBs – Hosted beats DIY on cost every time.

According to a June 2011 report by “cloud enablement provider” Parallels, two-thirds (66%) of UK Micro-SMBs (companies with between 1 & 10 staff) do not have any form of hosted IT solution in place – preferring instead to retain their servers in house and just “DIY”. However, make the same comparison against traditional SMBs in the UK (between 11 & 250 employees) and only 14% are still completely DIY.

Drill down into the data further and the primary reason quoted by the M-SMBs for server retention is price (almost 65%) with security coming a distant second at 29%.

What makes that an odd statistic is the fact that “Desktop as a Service” solutions (like the entrustIT Hosted Desktop) have been rigorously calculated to cost around 65% of DIY solutions when compared over a 3 to 5 year period and they don’t require any up-front investment in technology.

If you’re a M-SMB or an SMB and you’re :

  • Multi-site, Mobile or Working from Home or
  • Considering investing in a Server for the first time or
  • Close to the point where an existing server needs replacement

Then now might be the time to think about abandoning your DIY aspirations and looking at Hosted Desktops with an open mind.