Cloud App Connection Using Remote Desktop

Remote desktop applications are simply, applications that are delivered to users through the internet. It is software created by Microsoft, and it is used by a multitude of different software companies to allow their customers, connection to applications hosted within their cloud environment. Individual users would need to follow a brief setup process to create a remote desktop icon, after which they can connect to an application and use it.

Making A Remote Desktop Icon?

1. First click on the Windows start menu icon at the bottom left corner of your screen and type 'RemoteApp', from the options listed select 'Remote app and desktop connections.'

2. When the remote app and desktop connections window appears, select the 'access remote app and desktops' option from the left-hand side.

3. On the next screen, enter the company software URL that connects to the remote application, this should be provided by your IT or software provider. If you do not have the URL, you will need to contact them and ask for it. After entering it in, click next and then next again.

4. At this stage a Windows credentials box will appear, here enter the credentials given to you by your IT or software provider and then click ok, the setup may take from a few seconds to a few minutes. If you do not know the details you can contact your software provider to acquire them. If the credentials were correct, the loading bar will disappear and you will be presented with a finish button, just click on this to complete the setup.

Note: The credentials window may sometimes show an alert stating the credentials were incorrect before you enter in the credentials, please ignore this and enter in the credentials required to gain access to the software.

Note: Please tick 'Remember my credentials' before clicking on ok if you would like your machine to remember these details, ticking this box will allow for a faster login, as you will not need to enter in your credentials each time you load the application. This can of course be left unticked if you prefer to enter the password on each login attempt.

Your remote desktop icon should be ready to use now. To find the icon, access the remote app and desktop connections window and click on view resources, alternatively search the application name in the Windows start search bar and it should appear for you immediately.

Benefits of Using Remote Desktop

Disaster Recovery- Let's say you are using a remote desktop to access a recruitment CRM, by doing so you would be saving candidate and contact data on the recruitment CRM application, which is kept in a secure cloud environment. This means if your computer is stolen from your workplace and the user session is locked, your data is still safe and secure. If in case your machine was left unlocked and it had been stolen, software companies can block the individual login accounts to the application or even block the entire database from being accessed, fairly easily.

Accessing the Software - Using this method allows you to access the software from anywhere in the world, as long as you have a good internet connection and a compatible computer, you should be able to connect on without issue.

Updates - As the software is in a cloud environment, the software company is able to apply updates easily, which allows users like us to benefit from the latest software features and bug fixes. You don't need to worry about updating the cloud environment operating software, the security, the resources or the application in question, it is all taken care of. Some companies also monitor automated tasks that may come with their application, for failures and rectify them without you having to do anything.

Add-ons - Add-ons are more easily configured in cloud environments than they are in non-cloud environments. If a customer hosted an application on their own server instead of using the cloud, for some add-ons they may need to arrange a time when the software companies' engineers, connect to their server to make the required changes. With cloud, this extra step of connecting to the customer's server is not needed.

Security - Software companies keep their cloud environments safe by managing it well. They ensure certain website categories are not accessible, they have up-to-date security software, the cloud environment operating system is kept up to security standards, and specific protocols and other measures are put in place to maximize the safety of your data. Rather than managing all of this yourself, the software provider does this for you.

Downtime - Downtime is minimized as much as possible to keep people using their software for as long as possible, software companies plan their downtime and detail this to their customers on the purchase within their terms and conditions. The downtime is processed on days when users are unlikely to use the software, such as Saturday morning.

Backups - Software companies also ensure backups of your data is taken regularly, the software company I worked for, backed up all data every week, and then backed up any incremental data that had been added throughout the week. This was done every week for as long as the customer remained active with us. We did have a fair number of customers who requested a backup of their data when one of their staff members had accidentally deleted some information by accident, this can be especially helpful in these circumstances. As this is done by the software provider, you don't need to worry about this either.

Any Negatives to This?

Internet Connectivity - This is not really a negative if you have a good internet connection, however, if you are accessing the software from a cloud environment and your internet connection is poor, you are likely to lose connection to the software, this can become very frustrating as you will be cut off while in the middle of important work. Definitely, invest in getting a good internet connection if you are going to be using remote desktop to access the application.

Number of Sessions - When using applications that are installed on your local machine, it is possible to launch more than one session of it. Using remote desktop application, however, unless you connect using a different account, you can only open one session of the application (This may however vary depending on the provider and software).

Frozen Sessions - An issue that can come up when using a remote desktop application is having a frozen session. Sometimes the application may not be used how it was intended to be used, by the software provider, and as a result, it may freeze, or there may be instances where a bug affected the user process and caused the session to freeze. When this happens it may not be possible to log the session off from your machine, as the session itself is actually hosted on the cloud environment in which you would be working in, due to this, the best option may be to call or create a web case with the software provider asking for your session to be logged off, after which you can connect back onto a fresh session of the application.