Amazon WorkSpaces Pools: Secured Contact Center Desktops
Learn how Amazon WorkSpaces Pools enhance contact centers with non-persistent desktops, offering cost savings, scalability, and improved call quality.
Published Nov 22, 2024
In today's business environment, contact centers need to be agile, scalable, and cost-effective. One way to achieve this is by deploying non-persistent desktops using Amazon WorkSpaces Pools. This approach provides a secure, high-performance desktop environment that can be easily managed and scaled to meet the needs of contact center agents.
Amazon Connect is a cloud-based contact center service that enables businesses to deliver personalized customer interactions. It supports features like skills-based routing, real-time analytics, and AI-powered chatbots, making it a flexible and scalable solution for contact centers.
Amazon WorkSpaces Pools offer a cost-effective solution for deploying non-persistent virtual desktops. These desktops are ideal for contact center agents who need access to a consistent and secure desktop environment without the overhead of managing persistent desktops. With WorkSpaces Pools, each user gets a fresh desktop every time they log in, ensuring that they always have access to the latest applications and configurations.
This articles focused on the using Amazon WorkSpaces Pools for Contact Center Desktop.
A leading omnichannel call center specializing in delivering exceptional customer experiences (CX) for brands of all sizes faced the challenge of migrating its contact center virtual desktop infrastructure. Recognizing the complexities of such transitions, the company sought professional services to facilitate the integration process.
The deployment plan included several key components aimed at establishing a robust infrastructure. This portion of the deployment provided the implementation of Amazon WorkSpaces Pools virtual desktops for contact center agents. The deployment included configuring base images, application access, and connectivity tested to Amazon Connect. Additionally, Amazon WorkSpaces Audio Optimization for Amazon Connect was enabled to ensure high-quality audio for contact center agents, enhancing their ability to interact with customers effectively.
The outcomes included simplified VDI management by managing pools of Virtual Desktops through the AWS Console and reduced costs by optimizing pool size and storage using scaling policies to provide capacity based on demand and only paying for the resources used.
To ensure high availability and disaster recovery, a multi-region deployment setup was implemented. This involved creating user directories and WorkSpaces in both primary and secondary regions. The system automatically mirrored the primary WorkSpace bundle images to the secondary region and provisioned standby WorkSpaces. Data replication was enabled, with EBS snapshots of the system and user volumes taken every 12 hours and replicated to the secondary region.
Furthermore, the implementation of Amazon WorkSpaces Audio Optimization significantly improved call quality by redirecting media from the agent’s local desktop to Amazon Connect, reducing network hops and ensuring native-quality audio. This enhancement led to clearer communication, reduced latency, and an overall better customer experience.
Deploying non-persistent desktops using Amazon WorkSpaces Pools involves several key steps:
- Setting Up the Infrastructure and Networking: Begin by setting up your AWS account and configuring the necessary network settings. This includes setting up security groups, configuring a VPC, and integrating with your directory services.
- Creating a Custom WorkSpaces Image: Create a custom WorkSpaces image that includes all the necessary applications and configurations for your contact center agents. This image will be used to create the non-persistent desktops in the pool.
- Configuring the WorkSpaces Pool: Use the WorkSpaces console to create a new pool of non-persistent desktops. Select the custom image you created and configure the pool settings, such as the number of desktops, operating system, and application settings.
- Managing the Pool: Once the pool is created, you can manage it using the WorkSpaces console, command line, or API-powered tools. This includes monitoring usage, scaling the pool, and updating the custom image as needed.
- Define Appropriate Scaling Policies: Use a combination of auto-scaling and scheduled scaling policies to manage the capacity of your WorkSpaces Pools. Auto-scaling policies adjust the size of your fleet based on utilization metrics, while scheduled scaling policies adjust the fleet size based on a predefined schedule. For example, you can set policies to scale out when capacity utilization reaches 80% and scale in when it drops below 20%.
- Set Minimum and Maximum Capacity: Define the minimum and maximum capacity for your WorkSpaces Pools. The minimum capacity ensures that a certain number of desktops are always available, while the maximum capacity limits the number of desktops to prevent over-provisioning. For instance, you can set the minimum capacity to 10 and the maximum capacity to 50, ensuring that there are always at least 10 desktops available.
- Use Scheduled Scaling: Implement scheduled scaling policies to adjust the fleet size based on expected usage patterns. For example, you can schedule the fleet to scale up during peak hours and scale down during off-peak hours. This helps optimize resource usage and ensures that desktops are available when needed.
- Monitor Utilization Metrics: Regularly monitor key metrics such as CPU utilization, available memory, disk read/write operations, and network throughput. These metrics help you understand the performance of your WorkSpaces and make informed decisions about scaling policies.
- Test and Validate: Regularly test and validate your scaling policies to ensure they work as expected. This includes testing the auto-scaling and scheduled scaling policies, as well as the disaster recovery setup.
- Assigning Users: Assign users to the WorkSpaces pool. Each time a user logs in, they will receive a fresh desktop based on the latest configuration of the pool.
Deploying non-persistent desktops using Amazon WorkSpaces Pools is an effective way to enhance the agility, scalability, and security of contact center operations. By leveraging the benefits of WorkSpaces Pools, organizations can provide their agents with a consistent and high-performance desktop environment while reducing costs and administrative overhead.