The 21st century is widely known as the Information Age. With the proliferation of computers, digital technologies have come to rule our world with an indelible impact on the way we live and work. Information is literally ‘right at our finger tips’. We have become accustomed to instantly connect to all kinds of services and applications with our (mobile) devices anywhere and anytime. For booking a restaurant, checking our e-mails, finishing a presentation or having a conference meeting with colleagues in different locations. Remote access to internet services has become a utility, just like turning on the water tap.

This white paper elaborates on how IT Service Providers (SPs) can help their customers adapt to this 24/7 digital age with Remote Desktop Services (RDS) on Microsoft Azure and its latest development RDmi (Remote Desktop modern infrastructure). It explores the sales and technical opportunities and benefits for SPs in implementing RD in the most profitable way in order to increase customer experience, save money and time, and seize new business opportunities to grow the business. The paper concludes with a summary of how Insight can help SPs migrating to Azure with practical, hands-on sessions and a tempting early bird offer.

From Terminal Server to RDS and RDmiRemote Desktop Services (RDS) is a service for hosting providers to provide secure desktop applications from one central environment to end users, on-prem or in the cloud. RDS on Azure is the RDS cloud version rendering applications accessible from any location with an internet connection to Azure, on any device that has a Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) client.

The history of RDSWhen we look at the history of RDS, it was first released by Microsoft under the name of ‘Terminal Server’ in Windows NT Server 4.0 Terminal Server Edition as a stand-alone operating system back in 1996. It was an optional role within Windows 2000 and later on became the pillar of the Windows NT family of operating systems. In 2009, with the release of Windows Server 2008 R2 and after numerous improvements, Terminal Server was renamed ‘Remote Desktop Services’. Entirely in line with Microsoft’s Cloud-First, Mobile-First strategy, the next step in RDS history was the optimisation of RDS for cloud, which was accomplished with the release of Windows Server 2016. This version of RDS allows SPs to deploy secure remote workplaces fast and easily, and benefit from many Azure features, including scalability, flexibility and pay-per-use affordability. The infrastructure looks like this:

The RDS infrastructure with the latest enhancements of 2016

However, evolution continues. At Ignite 2017, the next stage was announced: a new modern infrastructure for RDS on Azure, referred to as RDmi: Remote Desktop modern infrastructure.

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From 24/7 infrastructure to 8-to-5 app support with RDS and RDmi on Microsoft Azure

The future: RDmi on AzureMicrosoft’s latest development, RDmi on Azure, significantly enhances RDS infrastructure roles. By refactoring the RDS roles and separating the infrastructure layer from the application/desktop hosts into IaaS and PaaS services, the need for SPs to manage these functions is highly reduced or even eliminated, so that especially hosting providers can achieve significant time and cost savings.

The Microsoft RDS team has innovated in three key areas:1. Security: RDS-hosted environments can use

authentication with Azure Active Directory, which brings many advantages like Conditional Access policies, Multifactor Authentication, Integrated authentication with other SaaS Apps using Azure AD, and the ability to get security signals from the Intelligent Security Graph. Moreover, by isolating the infrastructure roles (Gateway, Web, connection broker and others) from the desktop and app deployment hosts, another layer to separation is added for higher security of virtualised environments and multi-tenant capability.

2. Cloud readiness: New developments in the elasticity and scaling capabilities of Azure will reduce costs by enabling scaling in/out and up/down. The Diagnostics role is a new function that helps monitoring the deployment effectively.

3. Windows apps on any device: RDS has long had the flexibility to run on cross-platform desktop and mobile operating systems using apps, but Microsoft is now building support for HTML5 browser-delivered experiences. Of course, RDS works with Windows - even Windows 10 S - offering even more flexibility with how apps and desktops are accessed.

The RDmi infrastructure looks like this:

The new, separated infrastructure of RD modern infrastructure

Improved flexibility for hosting providersAll these architectural changes provide SPs with improved flexibility for running this infrastructure outside of their

own domain. This is a very appealing strategy for hosting providers particularly, since they no longer need to connect to the customer’s domain, which significantly enhances security. It also allows them to service multiple tenants from a PaaS service model and benefit from the elasticity and scale capabilities of Azure. In order to enable a smooth transition to the cloud, RDS supports hybrid deployment so that the application and desktop host can be on-prem or in the cloud in a separate environment. Good news for all of those SPs and their customers who want to migrate gradually.

In summary, the latest enhancements to the infrastructure of RDS integrate with key Microsoft Azure services, while increasing efficiency through multi-tenant capabilities to create a robust, secure desktop virtualisation hosting platform. There is an interesting video of the RDS team on Microsoft Blog Posts explaining some recent and upcoming updates on RDS. For those wishing to remain on top of the new developments, there is also an interesting blog to follow.

Business benefits for Service ProvidersAlong with current digital opportunities, there is a major shift in the way business is done. Businesses are required to lower their costs, increase revenues, and exceed customer expectations by improving quality, transparency, and creating value. The way to achieve this is to become more agile, react faster, and become more effective in the way they render their services and products.

This is no different for Hosting and Service Providers (SPs). They need to become more agile, transparent, effective and efficient in order to add value to their customers and help them grow their businesses. RDS on Azure offers many advantages for achieving this objective. It allows SPs to deploy secure remote workplaces fast and easily, and benefit from many Azure features, including scalability, flexibility and pay-per-use affordability. It is a perfect way to help SPs generating long term customer contracts and repeatable business, while helping customers to be successful in their businesses.

Commercial benefitsFrom CAPEX to OPEXIT purchasing is moving away from traditional buying models towards modern subscription models, from CAPEX expenditures to OPEX expenses. When SPs start leveraging their RDS services through Azure, they also move from CAPEX to OPEX. Instead of investing heavily in new infrastructure, managing and updating their IT, they enter a far leaner business model in which the entire

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infrastructure management and maintenance is taken care of by Microsoft and they only pay for what they use via the subscription model.

Scalability for cost optimisationRDS on Azure opens up completely new and very easy ways to scale services up/down and in/out. Scalability offers SPs a major opportunity to easily and flexibly support more users or applications that use more computer resources - or less in some cases - introduce new services, open up new markets, and explore foreign countries without any upfront investments or extensive knowledge gathering. Scalability also offers the opportunity to fine-tune IT usage and reduce costs considerably. The graph below shows the difference between a traditional infrastructure with associated costs where usage is always 100% on and scaled infrastructure, where usage is adapted to customers’ demands, with varying peak demands during business hours (morning, lunch and afternoon), and minimal usage during off hours with further variation between early morning and late evening usage.

Unscaled traditional infrastructure versus scaled infrastructure with RDS on Azure

Insight and CSP: 10% list price discount, plus incentives When teaming up with Insight, SPs can leverage their services via the Microsoft CSP (Cloud Solution Provider) programme, which offers attractive commercial benefits. The pay-as-you-go model allows for monthly billing of Azure subscriptions, including Office 365, without any upfront investments, and offers price protection during the term of subscription. CSP is the only programme that offers a 10% discount for Microsoft Cloud Services to resellers plus additional incentives, leading to very interesting margins of up to 20% on list prices with the help of Insight’s expertise.

SPs will become a respected, value-adding partner instead of a

budget-consuming IT vendorMeeting customers’ demandsThe direct commercial benefits for SPs mentioned above immediately translate into meeting customers’ demands and providing customer benefits. Since SPs’ customers will consume their IT service through Azure, they will also move from CAPEX to OPEX expenditures. This provides them with a very cost-effective IT solution, which is 100% cloud-based, has high uptime and provides them with instant, on-demand scalable and flexible capacity to introduce new services, enter new markets and enhance their business. SPs will become a respected, value-adding partner instead of a budget- consuming IT vendor.

Technical benefitsAutomationMany SPs are still provisioning servers and solutions manually for their customers, performing a whole array

of configuration tasks. Numerous manual tasks and often multiple technical persons in charge increase the risk of human errors or too many different deployments. Also, most SPs still have a heterogeneous platform with a mixture of new and old hardware, which makes provisioning even more complicated. In Azure, most if not all of these tasks are automated: a complete RDS solution is provisioned in less than 60 minutes. No worries about how to install or what to provision. There are Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates and scaling scripts to make life easier and save a lot of time. Due to the high level of automation, every deployment will always be exactly the same and will make future maintenance easier.

A complete RDS solution is provisioned in less than

60 minutes

From configuration to optimisationOnce SPs are used to the level of automation on Azure, their focus will shift from configuration to optimisation of cloud usage in its broadest sense. Valuable time - and therefore money - is freed to start monitoring and optimising performance, usage, services and more. This leads to immediate cost savings and higher customer benefits, which clearly is a win-win situation for both SPs and their customers.

SecurityNever before have there been so many security threats as today, from viruses, malware, cyberattacks, and software faults. It’s a challenging task for most service providers to detect breaches, to secure and monitor their systems optimally. Developing RDmi on Azure, Microsoft has significantly enhanced security with the introduction of Multifactor Authentication and Conditional Access policies, and by isolating the infrastructure roles from the desktop and app deployment hosts.

Multi-tenancyFrom a technical point of view, RDmi on Azure offers a major improvement for multi-tenancy by enhanced isolation of the RD Infrastructure and all session host environments. Usually, all RDS components are deployed into virtual machines connected to a single network (possibly over multiple subnets) in a completely domain joined environment. If an SP was providing a multi-tenant service, then the only way to secure it would be to deploy it over and over again. Now, new tenants are set up easily and securely.

Why Microsoft Azure?To recap, Microsoft Azure is the ideal, ready-to-use cloud platform for RDS deployment and release new business opportunities ranging from increasing process efficiency, delivering better customer experiences, to generating new revenue streams. Microsoft confirms: “Microsoft Azure is a growing collection of integrated cloud services that developers and IT professionals use to build, deploy, and manage applications through our global network of data centres. With Azure, they get the freedom to build and deploy wherever they want, using the tools, applications, and frameworks of their choice.”

Microsoft Azure: that’s why.

Cyber security and certificationsMicrosoft spends over 1 billion dollars annually on cyber security (a very important feature of the Azure platform), far more than any single company could expend. Microsoft Azure contains a vast amount of services and security functions to help SPs act on security threats, like monitoring tools, ways to limit exposure to threats and systems that will act on threats automatically. Moreover Microsoft holds more than 50 regional, global and industry certifications for Azure, including ISO 9001, ISO 27001, HIPAA, EU Model Clauses, SOC 1-3 and PCI DSS. These will make it possible to open up new markets that require these certificates through Azure.

Provisioning additional servicesApart from security threat protection features and many other services, Azure also includes backup and disaster recovery products to help secure customers’ data in case of a failure or a virus attack. Besides, it is very easy to integrate systems like Office 365, CRM Dynamics and Azure with products like Azure AD and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) to minimise exposure to hacker attacks.

How Insight can helpKnowing that the cloud offers huge opportunities for SPs is one thing. Understanding the cloud business and knowing how to capitalise on it is another! In cooperation

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with Microsoft, Insight offers a whole range of consultancy services, tools and support to help SPs onboarding smoothly and maximise their cloud business.

Our advice is to take it step-by-step. First of all, contact us at Insight. We have a team of experienced consultants to discuss business opportunities. Together, we will go through all the following relevant issues in order to formulate your needs and wishes:• Hands-on RDS on Azure Jump-Start Session for SP’s

technical and sales staff• Scenarios applicable to the business in a Discovery

Workshop• Opportunities to differentiate and build the best-fit

‘package’ offering• Licensing, Program details & program pricing• Technical Support• Managing and Provisioning

Decide now and jump-start your RDS on Azure ExperienceInsight has an irresistible offer for the first five participants to one of the Insight RDS on Azure Jump-Start Sessions: a Total Delivery Experience, free of charge, delivered by Insight. The Total Delivery Experience includes:• Pricing & planning for your first customer• Creating a POC environment• Deploying the customer environment (in cooperation

with you)• Migrating data• Finalising the configuration with Backup and Monitoring

Requirements: CSP subscription purchased from and delivered by Insight.

Contact Insight now.

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