Quadra’s Solution on AWS

AWS enables provisioning of virtual, cloud-based Microsoft Windows, Ubuntu Linux desktops for users, known as Amazon Workspaces. Workspaces eliminates the need to procure and deploy hardware or install complex software. One can quickly add or remove users as needs change. Users can access their virtual desktops from multiple devices or web browsers. It was the best secured VDI solution for the current scenario. It provided an easily scalable Windows file server setup which was easy to manage and provided granular control over the end users’ access to file and folders. A firewall implementation could also be done to control and manage the Workspace internet traffic.

Technical Solution

To begin with, we set up  a Virtual Private Cloud having different subnets in various availability zones, a NAT gateway for private subnets and an open internet gateway for the public subnets. A Site-to-Site VPN was established to have a secured tunnel connection from the Data Center to AWS cloud network. It also enabled us to take an RDP for the domain controller and file server as Elastic Compute Cloud instance. After setting up the network and domain controller we used an AD connector to connect to the domain and launched the Workspaces. Commonly used applications were installed prior in the workspace as a custom bundle to reduce the manpower of individually installing each application. We implemented a trusted firewall solution to control and manage all the end users’ access and connection to the internet. Finally, all the end users were provided the Amazon Workspace client, a registration code and credentials to login and work in the workspace.

Customer Benefits

The Amazon Workspace helped address all the challenges that our customer was facing with an on-premises setup. The benefits were huge.

• Production growth has increased nearly 90%.
• Provisioning of new workspaces is in minutes instead of days waiting for a laptop to be provisioned.
• AWS manages network connectivity for all the users reducing service interruptions for applications.
• There is no need for hardware management and upgradation.
• Downtime has reduced to nearly zero by eliminating shift based physical desktops.
• Always on/ HA has provided flexibility of connecting workspace anytime and from anywhere globally.
• Storage devices are no more needed as AWS provides easy scalability on storage capacity for the file server and workspaces.
• Backup storage devices have become redundant with the frequent automated backup of workspaces.
• Manpower for maintaining desktops and server has been reduced by 50%.