“We were very excited about moving to Chromebooks and taking advantage of the security and ease of management that Chrome OS and Google Workspace are known for – but we also have five legacy Windows applications that we rely on to run our business,” said Adam Nerell, Head of IT for Klarahill. “We utilize quite a few more Windows apps than that, but there are five that we simply could not operate our business without. So we could not make the move to Chromebooks without enabling access to those apps.”
Klarahill already had a remote desktop solution in place, but it was antiquated and they determined it would be easier to replace than to update.
“We decided we needed a solution where we could only pay for what we use,” said Nerell. “Our previous virtual desktop solution was 24/7, so we were always paying, even when it was not in use.”
Additional Challenges – Cost & Complexity
Like many IT professionals, Nerell initially began evaluating Citrix’s suite of virtual desktop products as a potential solution.
“I’ve worked with Citrix in the past and am very familiar with their solutions – but I’m also aware of how expensive it is, and the fact that you simply do not set up Citrix yourself without a third-party integrator,” said Nerell. “We were looking at tens of thousands of dollars just for the set up fees, and that’s without the actual cost of the product licenses, third-party infrastructure, and ongoing maintenance costs.”
“And all of that just to enable access to five critical apps! It became clear that the VDI or DaaS options were going to be far too costly and complex to be a feasible option,” said Nerell.
The Solution
Klarahill turned to their strategic IT partner, Online Partner for advice. Online Partner helped Klarahill realize that they didn’t need the cost & complexity of a full virtual desktop/DaaS deployment, and that the best Digital Workspace strategy for them would be secure Virtual Application Delivery. So they recommended that Klarahill evaluate Cameyo.
“Too often there’s a misconception that VDI or DaaS are the only options when it comes to enabling remote and hybrid work,” said Fredrik Linnander, CEO of Online Partner. “The reality is that most companies simply need a secure, cost-effective way to deliver a handful of business-critical Window and web applications to any device, from the browser. Cameyo is the simplest, most secure, and most cost-effective Virtual App Delivery solution we’ve experienced, and we knew this would be a perfect fit for Klarahill.”
When Klarahill decided to proceed with Cameyo, they were up and running in just three hours. And since the company deployed Cameyo, they’ve experienced the following benefits:
Key Benefits
- Simplicity – “To be honest, Cameyo was so simple to set up that I was skeptical at first. After just three hours, when we had it completely set up and our critical apps published, that skepticism quickly turned into a sense of awe,” said Nerell.
- Cost-effectiveness – “Just looking at month-to-month cost compared to our previous remote desktop solution, with Cameyo we are paying only 15% of what we used to pay. But then on top of that 85% savings, we also no longer need windows clients, so we save even more money there. In addition, we have far fewer support issues, so we save even more,” said Nerell.
- Security – “With Cameyo you get this very powerful solution, with very low complexity and cost, all while getting greater security than you’ll find in other solutions. Complexity is the antithesis of security. The more complexity a solution has, like the many components of virtual desktop solutions, the more potential security issues you will have. Cameyo is built on a zero trust security model, and it also strips away all of the complexity that could result in security issues down the line,” said Nerell.
Conclusion
With the help of Online Partner and Cameyo, Klarahill was able to complete their migration to Chrome OS and Google Workspace.
“People pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to build this themselves on-prem, and with Cameyo you get this for a few dollars per month per user – all without any of the complexity of deploying and managing VDI or DaaS environments. And you don’t have to give anything up in exchange for that simplicity and cost savings. Cameyo has everything – incredible security, great user experience, backup, power saving, clustering, elasticity – it’s really amazing,” said Nerell.