Hosted Desktop Services FAQs
Internet
Q: What internet connection speeds are required?
A: Many people are surprised at how little broadband speed is needed to run a hosted desktop. Most small companies which would expect to be precluded from services of this nature can actually make full use of Hosted Desktops and reap the benefits of reduced IT costs. We have provided a blog on this subject to help you : "UK Broadband Connection Speeds"
Related Links
Software & Hardware
Q: Who provides the software licensing?
A: We all do! We are registered SPLA software agents and will provide you and your customers with all the necessary software licensing. This is included in the per user pricing that each user receives within the platform user access license. Including Operating systems and any ancillary licensing like Remote Desktop, User CALS and Citrix.
You can still resell software to your customers and have this installed upon the platform as well. We can supply you with things like Microsoft Office, SQL and Exchange per user per month licensing or if you are already a SPLA registered supplier then you can continue to declare Office and SQL licensing as well.
Q: Can the Hosted Desktop platform be used with our customers existing applications and software?
A: Yes your Hosted Desktop works perfectly with customer owned and bespoke software. The support responsibility for these products remains with the original vendor. Your customers gain a single point of access from anywhere to their software, you also gain from a single point of software update management.
Q: Do we have to use your Hosted Exchange solution?
A: No not at all! You can use any reputable supplier who offers Hosted Exchange services with enterprise level Anti-Virus protection.
Q: Can we have Citrix included as part of our solution?
A: Yes by all means.
Q: When a server is deployed for a customer what should we expect?
A: VirtualTin always go the extra mile when delivering servers! We build the server to the latest patch release then deploy the server onto your platform even adding it onto the domain. We even use template builds customized to your requirements “at no extra charge” this includes software and operating system customizations. Meaning that you just need to install any customer owned software and migrate the user data and you are away!
Data
Q: Where is the data located?
A: VirtualTin only uses highly rated UK datacenters to store data. True Tier 3 datacenters are extremely secure and feature many failover systems to protect your data.
Q: Who owns the data?
A: Your customers do! The customers are yours, the infrastructure is VirtualTin's. We all work in true partnership delivering the service to your customers.
Q: How long does VirtualTin retain data?
A: Our standard data backup retention offering is 30 days. However as each platform we provide is custom built we can provide longer periods for retention, this will incur additional costs. These costs are simply added to the unit costs of item purchased.
Q: We have compliance requirements for our customers can you help?
A: Put simply YES! Our solutions are offered with exceptional levels of resiliency and offer many compliance requirements straight out of the box. For more unique requirements each platform is customized to your needs so it is unlikely that these cannot be accommodated for.
Support
Q: Who supports the end users?
A: We all do! VirtualTin provides 4th line engineers and support to ensure that our platforms and products are always working and running at their top performance levels. This single focused approach to the back end/datacenters is how we achieve such great results and reliability across the board. We specifically look for IT support companies that have top grade support levels in place to ensure the end users get an all round experience that is second to none.
Q: What about pre-sales support?
A: We are in true partnership, a sale for you is a sale for us so we always help you in encouraging sales in anyway possible.
Costs
Q: Can I get some idea of pricing?
A: Yes we are happy to provide full pricing for the Hosted Desktop solution but we do require a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) to be signed by both companies prior to full disclosure. It's a short document and we use NDA's to protect all parties and it just makes things easier, 99% of the time we are discussing requirements based on your customers requirements the NDA allows for us both to be very open.
Q: Who pays for software and hardware upgrades?
A: Any products and licensing that VirtualTin supply's include full upgrade assurance and can be added or removed from your platform as needed. Once up and running VirtualTin will keep you future proofed for the life of your contract.
Q: Your costs are great but your Hosted Exchange solution is more expensive then Office 365?
A: Yes and with good reason. Unlike Office 365 our Exchange infrastructure is offered on a full DAG mesh deployment and is backed up every 4hrs and all backups are kept for 30 days. However you do not have to use our Hosted Exchange you can continue to use your own supplier. You may find the following blog of interest: "Office 365 so whats the catch?"
Demonstrations
Q: Can we have a demo?
A: Each of our partners has a tailor built & designed platform. As your platform has not yet been deployed there is nothing to demo, but we have provided video feeds and images for you to see an example of a platform: "Demonstration"
Q: Once my Hosted Desktop platform is deployed can we then demo?
A: Yes, at no cost to you we provide you with the ability to demo your new platform. This is part of our partnership commitment to you and to encourage sales.
Q: Under the "Hosted Desktop In Action" section you do not show Windows Server 2003 R2. Do you provide this as an option?
A: Yes we do provide Windows 2003 R2 servers for customers requiring legacy operating system support, we do not provide Windows 2003 R1 as an option due to the fact that Microsoft have ceased support and updates for the product.