Facebook outsources much of its operational work to multiple third-party vendors and uses Amazon Workspaces virtual desktops so all users can log into the same Facebook-managed desktop environment, no matter which vendor partner they work for, or where in the world they are.

Facebook needed to ensure strict security and privacy controls were in place for this outsourced work and needed the burden of compliance to stay with them, and not their vendor partners.

They used Amazon Workspaces to ensure that Facebook data was accessed only from Facebook managed desktops.

However, their next challenge was how do users access these virtual desktops without compromising security and privacy?

Facebook needed to maintain control of the deployment of security patches and monitoring of security logs and ensure no external interference from the users themselves.

The solution also needed to be simple; providing user endpoints that were simple to configure and secure; reducing the burden on the vendors’ IT teams.

How is this all possible in an outsourced environment?

With Teradici’s PCoIP Zero Clients and PCoIP Management Console

PCoIP Zero Clients are small, stateless, inexpensive client devices with single image firmware and a single purpose OS, allowing Facebook to reduce OS variance to one and offer a uniform experience in their vision.

The PCoIP Management Console tool allows for central management of up to 20,000 zero clients, regardless of location and model. It allows for very easy to manage firmware updates and ‘plug & play’ deployment of new zero clients in under five minutes with zero manual intervention

PC-over-IP (PCoIP) technology delivers a secure, high-definition, and highly responsive computing experience.

PCoIP technology uses advanced display compression to provide end-users with cloud-based virtual machines as a convenient alternative to local computers. This virtual workspace architecture compresses, encrypts, and transmits only pixels to a broad range of software clients, mobile clients, and stateless PCoIP Zero Clients, providing a highly secure enterprise environment.

From a user’s perspective, there is no difference between working with a local computer loaded with software and an endpoint receiving a streamed pixel representation from a central computer.