In this article, Karen Gondoly, CEO, Leostream, discusses a few tips for hosting applications in a public cloud, hybrid cloud, or on-premises data center. These tips include which applications are ideal for hosting, what to consider when choosing a public cloud, how to select the right display protocol, and how to tie everything together.Â
As the public cloud gains traction, you might be looking for new ways to reap the benefits without scrapping what is already working in your data center. Have you ever thought about hosting applications in a public or hybrid cloud? Hosted applications offer unique advantages over traditional application deployment that enhance both the end user’s experience and your bottom line. Here, we highlight what to consider when building a hosted application environment and how to ensure a seamless end-user experience with a single pane of glass connection management platform.Â
1. Think Outside the (Data Center) Box
If you’re considering hosting applications in your data center, give the public cloud a few moments of consideration. You may find that the public cloud is a more cost-effective way to host your applications. For productivity applications, which typically require less computing, all major public cloud providers offer free or low-cost instances that spin up quickly. For graphics-intensive applications (such as AutoCAD or the Adobe Suite), public clouds provide GPU-enabled instances. GPU instances come with a hefty price tag. But by leveraging a connection management tool that monitors and manages capacity and power state, you can minimize the cost associated with these instances. Keep in mind that the public cloud may not be suitable for all of your applications, especially if you leverage applications that would rack up egress fees. In that case, consider building a hybrid (or multi-cloud) environment by augmenting your existing on-premises infrastructure with one or more public clouds.
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2. Identify the Application You Want to Host on the Cloud
Expensive applications can benefit from moving to the cloud if you pool those applications to share amongst multiple users. Applications hosted in the public cloud are also easy for users to access from anywhere and collaborate on from around the world. From traveling sales teams to WFH users (which is most folks nowadays), any applications that require on-the-go access should be top of the list for hosting. That includes any legacy applications you may have aging out but still embedded into users’ daily workflows. Legacy applications that can no longer be installed on modern operating systems in your data center can be moved to cloud instances, so users can continue to access the legacy applications.
3. Choose the Appropriate Display Protocol
Choosing the appropriate display protocol (how the user connects to the hosted application, which determines rendering performance) is essential to the success of your hosted application deployment. For productivity applications, a free or low-cost display protocol may be suitable. For a clientless option, check out the Apache Guacamole project, or you can leverage client-based options like VNC, RDP, or NoMachine.Â
Do you have graphics-intensive applications? For providing users with a consistent “at-desk†experience, you’ll need high-performance display protocols like HP ZCentral Remote Boost (highlights include video and web flash animations), Teradici PCoIP (defined colors and distortion-free graphics), Mechdyne TGX (adored by engineers, designers, and creators) and RemoteFX (straight from Microsoft so great when working in Azure).Â
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4. Define Your Users’ Workflows
Who is at the heart of your IT infrastructure? Your user! Always consider their needs and their workflows when building a hosted application deployment. Consider where they are connecting from, if they are in your network or off-site, and using a PC, a smartphone, or a tablet. All of these questions are determining factors for managing your hosted applications to ensure that each user has the proper access to their resources.Â
- Consider active times. When are your users logging in? You’ll want to automate plans to schedule power on and power off time, depending on your user’s typical work schedule. You want users’ machines ready when they need them and turned off when they have finished to avoid overpaying for computing in the cloud.Â
- Consider what they are connecting to. Are your users accessing legacy accounting software hosted in your data center? How about an instance of AutoCAD in Azure? Be sure the display protocol the user connects with matches the resource type.
- Consider how long they should use it. The public cloud follows a pay-for-what-you-use model. Pay-for-what-you-use is all well and good – until someone leaves a high-powered GPU-enable Windows instance running all month.
Thankfully, there are tools at your fingertips that can simplify implementing and managing these workflows.
5. Implement a Vendor-Neutral Connection Broker
Moving applications to the cloud isn’t the end of the story. You need technology to tie everything together. You’ll now want to consider a vendor-neutral connection management and remote access platform that can do the following:Â
- Â Manage all cloud and data center resources from a single-pane-of-glass interface
- Manage user connections and end-pointsÂ
- Establish protocol plans to match the protocol to the hosted application type
- Manage capacity (by increasing and decreasing the size of your cloud environment based on demand)
- Monitor for idle users and provide options for ending idle sessions
- Power off virtual machines that are no longer in use
With the right connection management and remote access platform in place, your hosted application deployment is easy to use and manage and ready to take you and your users into the future.
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