Workspot BYOcloud (Bring Your Own Cloud)
Last update: June 6, 2023 by Robert Plamondon
Contents
Introduction
Typical Workspot deployment. With BYOcloud, you pay the Cloud provider directly for the Cloud network and pay Workspot only for Workspot services.
The main expense of any Workspot deployment comes from the usage fees of the Cloud provider; that is, the cost of running the virtual machines. These are your virtual desktops, virtual GPU workstations, virtual application servers, and so on.
Workspot’s traditional billing model pays the Cloud provider for the virtual machines on the customer’s behalf, passing the costs along to the customer along with the cost of Workspot’s services.
However, there are cases where customers would like to pay the Cloud provider directly. Workspot supports this unbundling and calls it “Bring Your Own Cloud” (BYOcloud).
Other than the difference in billing, the customer experience for BYOcloud is almost (but not quite) identical to Workspot’s other offerings:
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Initial setup is the same, with the same level of support and with the same Workspot experts as direct billing. The customer experience during this stage is the same.
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Operation via Workspot Control is almost identical, including the range of virtual machines, regions, options, etc.
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The user experience is identical.
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Support is identical.
One difference is that some power-management controls are unlocked for BYOcloud, allowing you to reduce or disable power management in ways that Workspot can’t afford to do with fixed-price, non-consumption-based plans (use with caution).
Note: Sometimes BYOcloud is erroneously called “BYOC,” which means “Bring Your Own Computer.” Hopefully this error is made harmless through context: if we are talking about licensing or a virtual machine, we mean “BYOcloud,” but if we’re talking about a local device owned by the end-user, we really do mean “BYOC.”
How BYOcloud Works
With BYOcloud, Workspot charges for the number of licenses you purchase rather than the actual number or usage of your Workspot desktops and applications. This is consistent with Workspot’s normal Annual and Monthly billing model but not with its Hourly model.
What is a License?
A license is a ticket that entitles you to a Workspot desktop or an application. Licenses are pooled and are interchangeable within broad categories.
A license is assigned to an end-user as a side effect of acquiring a Workspot desktop or application.
For example, a user who is entitled to a Workspot persistent desktop won’t actually have one the first time they launch the Workspot Client and click on the desktop icon. That click allocates a license (if available) and a desktop (if available). If their desktop is revoked for some reason, things revert to the way they were before: the desktop and the license are both available for the next user.
If no licenses are available, the user won’t be able to launch the desktop or app. If all the desktops are in use, or the application servers already have all the users they can handle, the user also won’t be able to launch the desktop or app.
Desktop Licenses and Application Licenses
A Workspot desktop VM has only one user at a time.
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A persistent desktop is assigned to a user for an indefinite period, with the assignment typically lasting months or years. This is equivalent to a traditional computer on an individual employee’s desk. You need as many licenses as you have desktops and as many desktops as you have users.
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A non-persistent desktop is a shared desktop with one user at a time but many users over its lifetime, perhaps more than one user per day as some users log off and others log on. If you have more users trying to log on than you have desktops, some of them can’t connect. Thus, you need enough desktops for your maximum number of simultaneous users, and a license for each desktop.
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There is no difference between a desktop license and a GPU workstation license in BYOC licensing. They are interchangeable.
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Persistent and non-persistent desktops use different licenses. Licenses are interchangeable within each category but not between them.
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Applications. Workspot RD Pools are virtual servers running a Microsoft Server OS with the applications of your choice. A Workspot application license is required for a user to connect to an application. As with non-persistent desktop pools, you need as many application licenses as you have simultaneous users.
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Application licenses are interchangeable. The same license can be used for any app on any of your application servers.
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You can have as many application servers as you like, arranged in one or more pools of servers (called “RD Pools”) that you set up in Workspot Control. You can set up how many servers you want in the pool and how many users are allowed per server. You can create as many pools as you like.
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Licenses work on a (user x application) basis. That is, if you have set up Excel and Word as Workspot application and a user runs both simultaneously, this requires two application licenses.
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When the user clicks on the application icon in the Workspot Client, this checks out a license. If this succeeds, the application launches. Otherwise, the user sees a message that no licenses are available.
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When the user closes the application or an idle timeout closes it for them, the license is checked back in and can be used by someone else.
How Licensing is Enforced
You are allowed to have more licenses than you have desktops, and more desktops than you have users, but you can’t have fewer. This is enforced as follows:
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You can’t create a Workspot desktop without a license.
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An end-user can’t launch a Workspot desktop or app without checking out a license first. This checkout process is a transparent part of launching the desktop or app from the Workspot Client.
One Size Fits Most
Workspot’s traditional billing includes the cost of the VM itself, which varies according to the Cloud provider, region, CPU, RAM, GPU, and other factors. Once these are removed from the equation, Workspot can have a “one size fits most” policy where all broadly similar VMs use the same license interchangeably.
The current license categories are:
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Persistent desktops, including GPU workstations.
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Non-persistent desktops.
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Applications in RD Pools.
Persistent Desktop Licensing
Licensing is controlled on the “My Account > Corporate Settings > Subscription > Company Subscription” page. Use the Edit (pencil) buttons to make changes and the OK (checkmark) button to submit them.
Note: The first page you see when signing into Workspot Control (the Dashboard page) resembles the “Company Subscription” page but doesn’t let you change anything.
Because changes to licensing will affect how much you are billed, you need to provide a special confirmation before the change takes place. You must enter the email address you used to sign into Control before you can hit “Confirm.”
Annual Licenses
As their name implies, annual licenses are billed yearly. All annual licenses expire on the contract date, which is set when you sign up with Workspot. When you create a new annual desktop license, you are billed from the day it is created to the end of the contract year. The full amount will appear on next month’s bill. When a new contract year rolls around, you are billed for another year of service on all your annual licenses. That is, all the licenses that exist on the first day of the new year. Thus, it’s a good idea to check your usage and delete any unneeded licenses before the end of the contract year.
Example. Suppose your billing year ends on March 31. You will receive a bill in April for the full amount of all annual licenses you had on April 1. This applies both to licenses that are assigned to desktops and ones that are not.
If you acquire a new license on January 15, you will be billed in February for the prorated amount from January 15 through March 31 (75 days, or 76 if it’s a leap year).
Increasing and Applying Licenses
Suppose you have four new employees who need Workspot desktops. You need four currently unassigned persistent desktop licenses to provision desktops for them.
These licenses are assigned automatically as part of the process of creating or expanding a desktop pool in Workspot Control, as follows:
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If enough licenses are available already, they are applied automatically as part of the desktop pool creation process.
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Otherwise, you are warned about the shortfall and given the chance to cancel. If you proceed, the necessary licenses are purchased on the spot as part of the pool creation/expansion process (on the “Resources > Add/Edit Pool” page). The new licenses become active immediately. They appear on next month’s bill.
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The process is the same whether you create a new desktop pool or increase the number of desktops in an existing pool.
Decreasing Licenses
Once you are done with a license, you can:
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Delete the desktop it’s attached to, which frees the license for use with another desktop of the same type (persistent or nonpersistent).
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The license is now available, but you are billed for available licenses, so the next step is to relinquish the license in Workspot Control. You will be charged for the current month but the license vanishes from your bill after that.
You cannot reduce the number of licenses below the number actually in use. This means you need to delete unwanted desktops in Workspot Control first, then relinquish their licenses.
Monthly and Hourly Licenses
Monthly licenses are not available under BYOcloud.
Non-persistent Desktop Licensing
Non-persistent desktop licenses are much the same as persistent licenses. Both are offered as monthly or annual desktops.
Non-persistent desktops allow greater utilization of VM resources because a desktop assignment lasts only for a single login session: the user loses their desktop assignment when they sign out. (Compare this to a persistent desktop, where an assignment lasts for months or years on end.)
A login session typically lasts for no more than a working shift, and often less if you set the idle timeouts aggressively. This means that you only need as many desktops as you have simultaneous users, not total users. Shift workers and occasional users can be accommodated at little expense compared to giving each of them a dedicated persistent desktop.
As with persistent desktops, one license entitles you to provision a single desktop. Administrators can increase or decrease the number of licenses in exactly the same way as with persistent desktops.
Application Licensing
The applications in Workspot RD Pools run on virtual RD Pool servers that can accommodate multiple Windows applications and simultaneous users. Applications can be anything from in-house programs, standard Windows applications, and ones requiring high-end GPUs.
But none of this has any effect on Workspot application licensing. All applications use the same application license. Instead of associating a license to a given virtual machine, as we do with desktop licenses, application licenses are floating licenses that are allocated only per-user-application.
That is, a single user running three applications at once (which is possible with Workspot) consumes three licenses, and three users running one application each also consume three licenses.
When a user attempts to launch an application with the Workspot Client, it succeeds if there is an available license and if the application servers aren’t running at full capacity. You create the application servers and set the maximum number of users per server as part of the RD Pool creation process in Workspot Control. Adding and relinquishing licenses uses a process that is functionally identical to that of desktop licenses.
Application licenses are available in monthly and annual versions.
Related Document
Self-Service Consumption Billing and Power Management