Cisco today announced a new Cisco Desktop as a Service (DaaS) solution, which adds highly agile, cloud-based desktop virtualization solutions to Cisco's existing desktop virtualization product portfolio. The Cisco DaaS solution is built on the Cisco Desktop Virtualization Solution, enabling cloud providers to offer their customers a Cisco Powered, virtual desktop subscription service.

With the Cisco DaaS solution, cloud providers can offer their business customers scalability, security, performance, and efficiency. At the same time, these cloud providers gain operational capabilities such as management tools, licensing components and the ability to deliver desktops to multiple customers from one platform. The Cisco DaaS solution provides fast, easy and economical entry for cloud providers to this rapidly growing market and brings new service and revenue opportunities. 

For business customers, the solution provides increased choice and flexibility. Customers can choose to build their own on-premises desktop virtualization solution or buy a cloud-based, as-a-service solution, with Cisco Powered performance, scalability, and security.

The Cisco DaaS solution is based on the performance advantages and simplified management provided by Cisco Unified Computing System^TM and the Cisco Unified Data Center architecture.  Cisco solutions are designed to ensure a highly secure and consistent user experiences on any device, anytime and anywhere. To further strengthen this platform, Cisco has improved its underlying desktop virtualization solution to deliver greater scalability and performance, optimized cost, and wider client use case support for DaaS deployments through the following: 

• Improved density of hosted virtual desktops offering up to 252 virtual desktops on a single UCS blade server
• Support for end user applications that require high-quality rendering of immersive, 3D graphics
• New UCS Solution Accelerator Packs for Desktop Virtualization, providing simplified ordering

These enhancements benefit both on-premise and cloud-based (DaaS) implementers and end users, and are the result of Cisco's continued investment in desktop virtualization solutions.

"Many organizations are looking for ways to achieve the benefits of desktop virtualization without the need to install and maintain equipment or make capital investments," said Satinder Sethi, Vice President, Engineering, Unified Computing.  "Not only is Desktop as a Service a great solution for a growing number of companies, but Cisco's offering is uniquely architected to help cloud service providers achieve rapid time-to-market while economically scaling their business."

The solution includes deployment options from industry-leading ecosystem partners Desktone by VMware, and Citrix and is available through partners including ChannelCloud, Logicalis, Proxios, Netelligent, and Quest in the Americas; Dimension Data in APJC; and Adapt and ANS Group in EMEAR.

"Desktone by VMware and Cisco have developed a complete and proven blueprint for enabling service providers to offer a Desktop as a Service solution for delivering Windows desktops and applications as a cloud service based on VMware Horizon View." said Peter McKay, Vice President and General Manager, End-User Computing, VMware. "Our mutual customers such as Logicalis, Quest, Netelligent, Dimension Data, Adapt and ANS are utilizing our unique architecture that includes multi-tenancy, self-service provisioning, multi data center management, multi-desktop model support, grid-scale, and security to deliver Desktop as a Service and provide differentiated value added services to their customers."

"Citrix is working alongside Cisco and its new DaaS solution to help Service Provider partners, such as our mutual customers ChannelCloud and Proxios, to scale quickly, easily and economically, while delivering high levels of performance and service. This enables partners to differentiate with flexibility in desktop deployment models while preserving margins to help them capture new service and revenue opportunities. Our multi-tenant solution based on XenDesktop and XenApp leverages app orchestration to deliver a rich user experience; desktop, mobile and thin-client support; and self-service ease-of-use," said Mitch Parker, group vice president and general manager of Citrix.

"ChannelCloud has built our comprehensive end-to-end managed DaaS solution based on Citrix and Cisco DaaS solutions. With it, we're able to provide a seamlessly integrated platform that runs all our channel partners' software and business systems at the greatest possible value. Today we're hosting Desktop Infrastructure for leading providers including Digicel Group, an international telco operating in 26 markets," said Kent Erickson, president, ChannelCloud.

Simon Gillepsie, CEO of Dimension Data New Zealand, said: "Working with Cisco and Desktone by VMware has enabled us to develop our Desktop-as-a-Service solution, 3D Workspace, which has been specifically developed for the needs of New Zealand businesses and government organisations. Cisco's reference architecture enables us to provide a superior desktop experience to our clients, providing greater flexibility as their employees can work from any device wherever they are, and ultimately better value, as our clients only pay for what they use. By using infrastructure that is optimised for DaaS workloads, we can achieve service assurance and performance that our clients can be thrilled with."

"Cisco and Desktone by VMware's cloud-based DaaS solution serves as the foundation of our Virtual Desktop Infrastructure as a Service offering," said Rick Chapman, co-founder and CTO at Netelligent. "With virtual desktops as a service, Netelligent is able to deliver a highly secure, high-performance solution optimized for multi-tenancy and virtualization.  Cisco Powered DaaS significantly reduces management for customers by eliminating the need to maintain and upgrade data center environments, while also helping companies refocus IT resources on developing applications that expand their services or improve efficiencies in their workflows."

"The Proxios virtual desktop offering is based on key Citrix and Cisco technologies to ensure that we deliver the finest user experience possible, while our customers access their desktop applications anytime, anywhere.  Companies with multiple locations or high dependence on IT technology to run their business, such as law firms, manufacturing and financial services, depend on the high performance, cloud hosted applications and desktops that Proxios is able to provide," said Frank Butler, CEO, Proxios.

"The shift toward cloud services and BYOD are driving significant changes within the workplace and businesses are re-evaluating their IT strategies, including desktop management," said Tim Burke, Quest President and CEO. "As a provider of DaaS powered by Cisco and Desktone by VMware, Quest delivers a scalable, secure, easy to deploy hosted solution for those organizations not wanting to deal with desktop maintenance. DaaS complements Quest's existing portfolio of Cisco Powered Infrastructure as a Service and Hosted Collaboration Solutions offerings, enabling our customers to build their own cloud with no upfront capital investment."