1.1 What is a Hosted Virtual Desktop?
A hosted desktop is a virtualised user interface that acts in the same way as a standard
desktop. It allows users to access data and applications on their desktop without the files within having to be stored locally on the device, or in corporate networks. Essentially, the popularity of hosted desktops today lies within their ability to deliver a desktop indistinguishable from their device-stored counterparts.
A hosted virtual desktop is defined as:
‘A product set within the larger cloud-computing sphere generally delivered using a combination of technologies including hardware virtualisation and some form of remote connection software.’
1.2 What is Cloud Computing?
The term cloud computing is typically used to describe the use of virtual machines that provide businesses or individuals with access to shared pools of data and content. Cloud computing is defined as:
‘The practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or personal computer.’
Businesses that make use of cloud computing tools store data in ‘The Cloud’, which is the common name for a remote network of servers used to store data. This data can be accessed using the internet, instead of from the hard-drives of individual device. Cloud service providers will typically offer infrastructure, storage, application and networking services charged in a similar fashion to electricity or gas – by usage, or by storage capacity.
