DaaS vs. WaaS -What’s In It For Businesses?

Technology is evolving at a rapid speed to meet the new requirements of the changing world. New terms like DaaS and WaaS have come into the picture and have left everyone confused about their uses and advantages. Often, most people do not understand the difference between the both and use them interchangeably.

Virtualization technologies like DaaS and WaaS are becoming very popular these days. The total market cap of virtualization technologies is expected to grow between 26 and 34 billion USD in the next few years.

DaaS or Desktop as a Service is a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) based solution offered by third-party providers. In the case of DaaS, you get access to virtual desktops with the desired configurations via the Internet. The IT management is taken care of by the cloud service provider, offloading the maintenance of the hardware setup from the in-house IT team.

WaaS or Workspace as a Service comes as the next level to DaaS. WaaS, like DaaS, provides a digital workspace to the users. Hardware management is taken care of by the cloud service provider. However, WaaS also offers necessary features like antivirus, data backup, and application management features on the cloud by the cloud service provider.

Though both DaaS and WaaS are cloud computing technologies duly acknowledged for their usefulness, there is some difference in both the technologies. Let’s see.

Security and Compliances

With DaaS, security comes for the DaaS infrastructure and the data stored in the cloud. It also prevents cyberattacks on the hardware or malfunctioning of the hardware. The applications are implemented and managed by the provider’s IT team and require a dependency on IT resources available with the organization.

With WaaS, applications and data security are a part of the implementation. Security encompasses both IT infrastructure and applications. In a WaaS setup, any attack on the data and applications is taken care of by the regulated firewalls and antivirus installed on the cloud infrastructure.

Cost-Effectiveness

DaaS implementation helps save the hardware infrastructure cost of in-house hardware as the IT infrastructure is offered by the provider. Your cloud service provider is responsible for its maintenance at a fixed cost that is already included in your subscription fees. Since hardware management is offloaded, the internal IT team’s responsibilities are also reduced, and you can use your team effectively for more productive activities.

WaaS implementation takes care of hardware infrastructure cost saving similar to DaaS and helps in saving in implementation and license cost of the applications and antiviruses. The applications, data, antiviruses, and firewalls are managed by the WaaS provider at a fixed rate as agreed upon in service level agreements. This helps the organization in saving the costs of licenses and antiviruses and their updates by the internal IT team. Also, the organizations can work by reducing the internal IT team’s strength as the cloud service provider manages all the activities.

Flexibility

DaaS provides the flexibility to the organizations to resize their IT infrastructure as per their business requirements without any worries. The cloud service provider makes sure that the virtual desktops can be increased or decreased within no time as per the client’s need. The flexibility also allows the organizations to use the resources optimally and plan their business operations accordingly.

WaaS also provides similar flexibility as DaaS, along with additional flexibility in terms of applications and firewalls, and antiviruses/antimalware licenses. The significant difference is that WaaS implementation allows the clients to renew or cancel the license of the applications and antiviruses/antimalware as per the requirement. In case of any increase or decrease in the license requirements, the flexibility offers the freedom to use only the licenses required.

Business Continuity

Disasters are not alien to any location on the earth. They can occur at any time and in any form, like earthquakes, floods, storms, or pandemics. DaaS comes with a geo-redundancy feature that replicates the physical machines on servers across different geographical locations. In case of a disaster, be it human-made or natural, you can easily access your virtual machines from any other device without any halt to your business.

WaaS also comes with a geo-redundancy feature. However, the difference is that WaaS backs up applications as well along with data on diversified locations. The backups of business applications help restore the applications, antiviruses/antimalware, and the data in any disaster.

Productivity

In DaaS implementation, employees can work from anywhere, anytime, as they can access the system from anywhere using the internet. The cloud service provider can resolve any IT issue in no time, but in case of any application or data issue, the internal IT team needs to be connected for the resolution (and it takes more time) that may hinder productivity.

With WaaS also, employees can also work from anywhere and can log in from any compatible device. Since the cloud service provider maintains the applications and data on remote servers, the same application is available to all the system users, providing each of them with the same experience. Also, both the IT and application issues are sorted out by the cloud service provider in no time, offering enhanced productivity.

Conclusion

Both DaaS and WaaS provide an unmatched experience for the users. It depends on the requirements of the business that helps you in selecting DaaS or WaaS. The above differences will help you in choosing the model best-suited for your needs.