Amazon WorkSpaces is a managed, secure cloud desktop service. Amazon WorkSpaces removes the complexity in managing hardware inventory, OS versions and patches, and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI).
$21
per month
Omnissa Horizon
Score 5.5 out of 10
N/A
A VDI solution used for the secure delivery of virtual desktops and apps from on-premises to the cloud. It is used to deploy, manage, monitor and scale desktops and apps across private, hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructure using a cloud-based console and SaaS management services.
For our use case, we found Amazon WorkSpaces well suited to remote work and other "work from home" and "work on the road" situations where the end user did not need to consume HD media (notably 4K) and did not need to produce any multimedia (audio, video, etc), but rather needed to perform more typical tasks such as web-browsing our corporate intranet and internal online apps, accessing files and using them through office productivity suites (Office - both online and desktop, and LibreOffice are under testing), etc.
Horizon View is well suited in larger organizations where there are needs to securely access applications and data from outside the internal network. It allows users a complete desktop experience remotely with access to all resources that are available on the local internal private network. It is fast and robust as data does not need to traverse the connection like a VPN connection and stays within the local internal network increasing data security. Cost for hardware and software is a high initial investment so smaller organizations will find it hard to justify the financial costs. In a diverse user environment, there are many uses for Horizon View. When faced with a need for a solution for users to access information or applications outside the internal network, having Horizon View is one of the best go to's to have available. Use your imagination and creativity to solve many business needs
VSAN -- This experience is from a pre-Horizon 7 deployment. While we have had redundancy issues in our deployment, the concerns we experience are said to be resolved in the latest VSAN release.
Persona Management can be troublesome, leading to mismatches in user data against the server. This requires manual interaction to resolve if a network or user error led to the two falling out of sync. The risk in this is user data loss. Again, new developments in user management is said to resolve these concerns in Horizon 7.
Security Servers and off-site access to VMware Horizon View has been difficult due to the problematic deployment scenario (a server inside the network with several external hooks). This is said to be resolved with the advent of EUC in Horizon 7. I'm excited to begin testing on this solution as feedback elsewhere has been positive.
For its Primary purpose in our organization, providing developers and testers a clean, isolated and configurable environments which saves hours. The usability is nearly perfect. Usability is only suffering when user is into more intensive task like any kind of graphic works. At that time user is not experiencing the smoothness like a local machine
Because it delivers what it promises, I am giving this rating. While there is scope for improvement, it does the job and meets our requirements reasonab;y well. It helps our remote resources connect to our environment securely and improves their productivity. We also get to access our client environment from remote locations and complete the tasks assigned to us.
There are a lot of things that went into my rating from the ease of use compared to other systems to the limited amount of issues I have had with this one. Any issue with this system has been identified and resolved in a much quicker manner than I have seen with like systems.
AWS support in general is pretty good, and WorkSpaces is no exception. We haven't had too much need for support but on the occasion we have, they've been quick to respond and helpful. Our issues have been resolved rapidly.
It is surely way better than Citrix, but it could improve a bit. Usually, they send us the solution without saying what was the root cause so we can avoid breaking something in the future. Besides that, VMWare support answers in an OK time-frame and even speaks our language (Portuguese).
WorkSpaces (VDI) is a much more robust solution that competitor offerings when considering scalability and security. Amazon WorkSpaces has a substantial free tier to explore if this is the right solution for your project without purchasing other solutions. Considering this, AWS is a great solution to explore Virtual Desktop experiences and workstations for any growing remote business.
VMware Horizon seems to be more powerful and adaptable to multiple operating systems than the Citrix products I have used. VMware has been simpler to use and has a lot more customization than other of the other similar products I have used. It has solved a lot of the issues I have encountered with the systems put out by Citrix.
