Secure remote access solutions for small and medium businesses

Remote workers are often the focus of potential cyber events, and many home networks lack the security measures needed as a first line of defense. There is also a rise in phishing issues and credential theft geared towards home email addresses that can impact employee devices. This puts corporate data and sensitive financial information at risk when accessed by remote workers on home networks.

A cloud-based virtual workstation is a way to host your local desktop in the cloud. Virtual workstations on AWS using Amazon EC2 with GPUs are a great fit for studios, creative departments, and freelancers that need high-performance workstations for visual effects, animation, or video editing. Virtual workstations can also be used anywhere by artists and editors without performance constraints. These solutions support remote desktop access and enable secure connections from mobile devices and other endpoints.

In the past, remote workers would use a remote access virtual private network (VPN) to securely access applications, data, or files from corporate servers housed on-site. Many businesses are moving away from traditional on-premises IT services in favor of the cloud. Because of this, there is less need for remote workers to connect back to a physical office since their applications reside in the cloud.

AWS Client VPN is a cloud VPN that enables your remote employees to securely access AWS Cloud resources and those hosted by an on-premises network. As an added benefit, cloud VPNs place resources closer to your remote workforce for better performance, which leads to increased productivity  and secure access.

A virtual contact center enables employees to work from any location. Since this removes the need for office space or equipment, it can help reduce costs and improve scalability. As agents can work in a location of their choice, virtual contact centers can lower employee turnover rates, a common challenge for contact center staffing. With Amazon Connect, you can set up a virtual contact center in just a few simple steps. Remote agents can chat with customers, manage tasks as they are routed to them, while handling everything from a single interface.

Virtual cloud desktops create an entire working environment for remote employees. Application streaming focuses on delivering a single application. Amazon Workspaces is a managed, secure cloud desktop service allowing employees to access documents, applications, and resources from supported devices anywhere, with a full desktop experience.

Amazon AppStream 2.0 is a fully managed application streaming service that provides users with instant access to their desktop applications. These are accessible from anywhere with a device of their choice and features a responsive, fluid user experience.