The 2020 Pandemic has caused permanent disruption to business and critical user workflows. Most universities felt pain points during the pandemic in an effort to maintain productivity. In the post-pandemic world, most universities and staff expect remote work environments.
However, daily ransomware attacks are a reminder that while maintaining user productivity is important – ensuring security is paramount. Colonial’s pipeline’s CEO told congress that the attack occurred using a legacy Virtual Private Network (VPN) system that did not have multifactor (MFA) authentication in place. As hackers become more sophisticated and have increasing access to advanced computers, brute force attacks are becoming common, driving the higher education community to take an active approach addressing ransomware and denial-of-service attacks.
Is a reliable, consistent, and secure cloud solution out there? And if so, is the product cost within the realm of reason? Do we dare consider this possible when many virtual desktop solutions bring more complications than solutions? Most enterprise desktop and application environments are expensive to purchase and maintain, on-prem hardware management and eventual replacement, over-complicated products, and often poor support.
Common Issues Implementing a Successful Remote Work Environment
2020’s pandemic changed the rules for technology; we are now faced with providing on-prem and remote work capabilities. Many CIOs who have faced the challenges of implementing and maintaining a traditional VDI may cringe at the idea of implementing one for remote work. Let’s take a look at how Apporto is different from traditional VDI:
Traditional Approaches vs. Apporto’s Cloud Native Solution
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Challenge
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Common Approach
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Apporto’s Modern Solution
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Remote access
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VPN required
VPN clients required
Firewall and policies required
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No VPN required
No client required
IPSec tunnel flexibility for connections to on-prem/ hybrid resources
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User desktops and apps
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VDI (expensive and complex)
Cloud desktops often added cost
On-prem/hybrid connections require separate access methods, complex to manage and maintain
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Cloud desktops are accessed through browser, no need to manage any hardware
Apporto updates OS images and app updates by request, you can offload these tasks to our support team
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Hardware
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Must be purchased and maintained
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No hardware to purchase or maintain
Hybrid solution available to re-use existing hardware clientless with our product
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VDI complexity
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Multiple images required with permanent storage costs
Ongoing maintenance and updates are required
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One image for each OS
Containerized options to save costs (including SQL)
Apporto handles all typical OS image updates, and by request will update any of your apps
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Disaster recovery
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Typically does not exist for most enterprise environments
Complex to manage and maintain multiple environments (prod/test/dev)
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Simple, cost-effective DR is built into the solution.
Customers use our cloud solution for both prod and dev/test environments
Simple and effective to maintain separate prod/test/dev environments
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Security
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Virtual desktop security is only as good as the underlying configuration, e.g. existing Active Directory configurations often do not reflect a least privileged or zero-trust access
Clients are required, which carry vulnerability of gaining privileged access, potentially allowing remote code execution for gaining access
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We adhere to zero-trust policy-based security
Apporto is clientless, we rely on the trusted security of highest levels of HTTPS encryption available today
Apporto works with your existing MFA without additional configuration required by integrating our instance with your SSO Identity Provider
Apporto uses dedicated cloud networks with AWS and Azure which dramatically decreases risk of successful DDoS and ransomware attacks into your infrastructure
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Support
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Often requires additional purchase for substandard service
Not possible to offload support to vendor
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Our support is included
Dedicated 24X7 support team standing by for admin and/or user assistance
Ability to offload some help desk tasks to Apporto
Apporto provides CSM at no additional cost, primary technical contact (e.g. image updates, app additions, analytics)
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Least privileged access
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Managing all the images required for various users/groups is unwieldy
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Apporto enables an admin to create one image and then create desktop variants – those deliver a simple app (no OS access) or a desktop with the minimal set of applications needed by this user
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Industry expertise
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Virtualization vendors historically focus on healthcare, finance, and large enterprise accounts
Faculty training not available
Administrator training only available through expensive professional services contracts
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Apporto’s focus is Higher Education, we understand the classroom environment and challenges that come with it, we install and daily manage GPU-intensive applications common to STEM courses
Apporto offers Faculty Training, Administrator Training included in the service, every college and school district has access to this service no matter your size
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Take the next step toward securing and modernizing your institution’s remote work solution and try our online demo. You’ll get immediate access to our live demo, try it out and see for yourself!
