GoCloud hosted desktops help charities thrive with IT that raises expectations.
A hosted desktop offers your usual desktop experience, with all of its files, folders, software, emails and settings.
The difference is that rather than being stored on your own on-site server, we host it within our sophisticated UK data centres.
Due to your desktop being hosted remotely, you can access it from any device anywhere in the world via an internet connection.
The result is each member of staff having constant access to their own desktops no matter where they are, such as when working from home, visiting a sponsor, running events and public engagement activity, and even whilst on the bus or train.
Rather than staff and volunteers editing files whilst out and about and needing to remember to upload them to an office computer, they have access to their familiar desktop around the clock.
This greatly improves productivity levels and removes the risk
of files being out of date, accidentally overwritten with older
versions, or simply being inaccessible when needed most.
Charitable organisations have a wide variety of data that has to be kept confidential.
All it takes is for some data to be lost, corrupted or accessed by an unauthorised party and you’ll find yourself in the middle of a PR and legislation nightmare.
With this in mind, we’re sure you’ll be pleased to hear that hosted desktops from GoCloud come with the following security features as standard:
More than any other type of business, charities need to ensure that their daily operations are as cost-effective as possible.
The uneconomical application of funds can cause a real headache and undo all of your employees’ hard work, so affordable and efficient systems are an absolute necessity.
Whilst hosted desktops can play a leading role in improving your fundraising activity, they also significantly reduce energy consumption.
This is due to your computer equipment not having to work as hard to perform its usual tasks.
Meanwhile, remotely hosted desktops remove the need for in-house servers, which guzzle electricity and also require an air conditioned environment to remain functional.
In addition, when you use hosted desktops you have the option to replace your old hardware with thin clients.
These are specifically designed to access hosted desktops
through an internet connection and use a lot less electricity
than traditional hardware, bringing further savings on your
monthly utility bills whilst also being environmentally
friendly.
We talked about security earlier but there’s an additional benefit that hosted desktops bring to charities.
Cloud computing makes it extremely easy to store and manage data on a single server, which is a huge advantage to GDPR compliance.
Rather than having the individual files stored on multiple devices that might not be password protected, they’re all kept in our secure data centres.
Your staff simply log in to their personal hosted desktops when
required, without physically downloading files onto multiple
computers, laptops and smartphones.
Hosted desktops from GoCloud can be upscaled and downscaled as often as required, ensuring that you’re only paying for what you use.
They also give you the ability to allow volunteers and temporary staff to access relevant files from their own devices, removing the need to invest in additional hardware.
Choose hosted desktops and watch your overheads rapidly decrease from day one!
Book a demo with one of our cloud experts and see how easily you can move your IT to the cloud.
"Using the GoCloud technology is just like sitting in the office anyway, so there's never any loss of work time."
"There were no upfront capital costs, we could save on energy bills, and we could pay for their service monthly."
"The service is incredibly reliable and since working with them we have had a smooth, fast and stable platform."
Find answers to more popular questions by visiting our FAQs.
You are able to download your data whenever you want. Depending on how much data you have, you can copy the data via a mapped drive, download via FTP, or we can send you USB hard drives.
A hosted desktop is a Windows desktop containing your applications, which you use to access your files and data from. Files can be stored on a hosted file server, data can be on a database server such as SQL Server. Our hosted desktop service comes with the desktops, file server and a firewall, all dedicated to you and not shared with other customers.
No. Customers can use any PC, Mac or Linux machine to connect to their hosted desktop. One of the initial cost-savings is the ability to continue to use existing PCs. As the processing power, memory, and storage are provided by our servers, customers are even able to use older PCs that would be unable to run a new Operating System themselves, thereby extending their working lives and ROI. Alternatively, you may decide to supply thin clients, to further enhance the benefits of moving to a hosted desktop environment. Thin clients are physically smaller PCs; they cost less than a normal PC (aka a "fat client"), and use a lot less energy. Of course, as a hybrid measure they may opt to simply replace existing computers with thin clients as they begin to fail. Hosted desktops will also work on laptops, tablet devices such as the iPad and smartphones such as the iPhone.
Firstly, we recommend using a backup internet service if required, such as ADSL or a dongle if mobile. Secondly, if you lose your connection to your hosted desktop, when you regain your connection, your desktop is exactly as you left it, with all applications and data intact.