IndependenceIT, a workspace automation software platform provider that allows IT departments, service providers and ISVs to easily deliver workspaces, applications and data from any cloud infrastructure, today announced validation from industry-leading IT service providers and market analysts with respect to its highly automated multi-platform Workspace-as-a-Service (WaaS) software.

According to the IDC Worldwide Virtual Client Computing Desktop as a Service-Enabling Software Forecast, 2015-2019 (Oct 2015, Doc # 259419), "The software-enabling hosted desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) segment of the market will grow from $376 million in 2014 to $1.4 billion in 2019, representing a five-year CAGR of 29.1%.

Technology buyers continue to gravitate toward WaaS solutions to increase business agility and lower costs. However, many challenges still remain with the majority of solutions on the market. Most of the available products are not built for cloud infrastructure, making it difficult or impossible to operate in cross-platform environments. As a result, large capital investments must be made by IT service providers on infrastructure to support distributed deployments. Because the majority of options are extremely complex, there is a steep learning curve that reduces time to deployment and revenue for WaaS providers. Additionally, the fragmented management of infrastructure, hypervisor, OS, application, master image, Active Directory, and end-user environments add extra layers of complexity and risk.

IDC recently penned a commentary titled Cloud Workspace Suite 5.0 - Enabling Choice in Public Cloud Virtual Client Computing Deployments. The report notes that the release of Cloud Workspace Suite (CWS) 5.0 is aimed at enabling multi-cloud or hybrid cloud virtual client computing (VCC) deployments. "CWS 5.0 enables enterprise IT organizations and service providers alike to leverage a mix of on-premise and public cloud resources that best meets their needs for implementing and managing virtualized desktops and/or applications. One of the new and improved features is aimed at facilitating IIT-powered VCC deployments on Microsoft's Azure as well as mixed deployments between or completely on other cloud/datacenter infrastructure/hypervisor platforms such as AWS, Citrix, OpenStack, and VMware."

"While the demand for cloud desktops, applications, and complete workspaces is increasing among end-users across every vertical, the ability to design WaaS infrastructure that meets the specific needs of customers is critical," said Mike Callan, CEO, Swizznet. "Cloud Workspace Suite addresses the shortcomings of more limited platforms and lends itself to serving the broad range of customers found in the market today. The newest capabilities in version 5.0 fill a gap for Swizznet's customers who seek more granular control over their cloud deployments and greater efficiency in how WaaS infrastructure is managed."

David Laing, a research manager covering IT service management and client virtualization software for IDC stated that "IndependenceIT CWS 5.0's ability to scale VCC deployments across multiple public cloud datacenters stands to enable those that leverage IaaS to become more competitive in the WaaS market by improving their margins and enhancing their end products and services. As the market becomes increasingly educated on the benefits associated with cloud management control planes (related to the efficient provisioning and managing virtual client computing instances across hybrid infrastructures), solutions like IndependenceIT's CWS 5.0 will continue to gain traction with enterprise IT and service provider organizations alike."

"Workspace / App deployment agility and automation by IndependenceIT is a remarkable complement to our Citrix-based service offering as it ends much of the manual processing required for new client onboarding and service upgrades," said Sam Berar, Co-founder and CEO of AxiomIO, a provider of end-to-end cloud services and experts in Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop for the global enterprise. "We estimate that Cloud Workspace Suite will provide us with significant savings in terms of the resources allocated for service deployment throughout 2016."

The majority of workspace solutions on the market lack cross-platform compatibility which has resulted in vendor lock-in for many customers. Laing noted that because the environments, architectures, management tools, and business models are highly heterogeneous, vendor lock-in becomes a dangerous proposition. Next-generation solutions allow administrators to set up a VCC deployment on a given cloud or migrate an existing deployment to another provider. If these tasks can be completed in minutes as opposed to days, the risks associated with lock-in would be mitigated.

Cloud Workspace Suite 5.0 includes support for Azure Active Directory-as-a-Service, private cloud integration/management for multi-node, multi-vendor configuration of software defined data centers (SDDCs). Automated SDDC deployment allows administrators to install the solution across one or more virtualization platforms or cloud infrastructures, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Openstack, VMware vSphere / vCloud Director, Microsoft Hyper-V and/or Citrix XenServer. IndependenceIT's patented global control plane makes cross-platform management possible and allows oversight of the Workspace-as-a-Service (WaaS) layer.

"The growing movement toward cloud-delivered workloads is increasing demand for infrastructure agnostic, highly scalable options for greater agility in real-world deployment scenarios," said Seth Bostock, CEO, IndependenceIT. "We appreciate the market's acceptance of our key innovations in version 5.0 as we prepare for distribution of the software to our global partner ecosystem."

View the full IDC report on Cloud Workspace Suite 5.0 by IndependenceIT at: http://www.independenceit.com/documents/IIT_IDC_Report_3_2016.pdf