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Your WorkSpaces trial stalled. It is almost always one of three things.

Active Directory, bundle sizing, or cost climbing instead of falling. Those are the three places trials stop, and they are the three things our engineers clear in the first week.

We're an AWS Advanced Tier Partner with the Digital Workplace Competency. We take WorkSpaces environments from trial to production every week.

Get the trial unstuck
Trusted by brands you know, built on AWS

The trial was never the hard part.

Turning WorkSpaces on takes an afternoon. What stops it becoming production is the identity, network and cost work underneath, which is the part the trial does not walk you through.

How a stalled trial usually goes
Day 1 · The environment comes up
A few test desktops, everything looks promising
Working
Effort an afternoon
Day 4 · Active Directory
Users need to be your users, not new ones. AD Connector, trust, DNS, subnets.
Stalls here
Owner whoever has timeProgress slows
Day 9 · Bundles and cost
Everyone is on the same bundle, running mode is always-on, the bill climbs
Case weakens
Cost higher than laptopsDecision postponed
The same trial, with us on it
Directory integrated, bundles matched to real usage, running modes set
Production path
First week unblockedCost modelled, not guessed
Illustrative timeline. The three stall points are not: they are the same three every time.

Three environments that made it to production

Each one got past the same obstacles that stall a trial: directory integration, network, and bundles sized to the work.

TOMS

Global consumer brand · international contractors

Contractors working on day one, with nothing shipped out

Shipping hardware to contractors abroad meant delays, lost inventory, and kit that never came back. We deployed WorkSpaces against the Active Directory TOMS already ran.

Their Global Infrastructure Manager credited our "proactive approach and in-depth knowledge of AWS services."

Chris Cournoyer, Global Infrastructure Manager, TOMS

40%Operational efficiency improvement
25%Cost reduction
Culinary Staffing

2,000+ employee foodservice staffing agency

A 2,000-person dispersed workforce, without the laptops

Buying and supporting laptops for a constantly rotating workforce drained capital and IT time. We deployed WorkSpaces across two Availability Zones, linked by VPN.

Their COO called it "a game-changer for our bottom line and IT operations."

Jessica Seastead, Chief Operating Officer, Culinary Staffing

25%Hardware cost reduction
60%Decrease in IT hardware workload
American Equity

NYSE-listed insurer · 400 simultaneous sessions

A VMware Horizon estate moved before the lease ran out

VMware Horizon could not scale to 400 sessions and the data centre lease was ending. We replaced it with WorkSpaces, sized per user group, ahead of the deadline.

Four hundred simultaneous sessions moved off VMware Horizon with no user-visible change.

From the American Equity case study

35%Lower data centre operating cost
40%Better VDI performance

The three places trials stop, and the one that follows

If your trial is stuck, it is almost certainly one of the first three.

Active Directory

Users have to be your existing users, with your groups and policies. AD Connector or Directory Service, DNS, trust, subnets. This is where most trials quietly end.

The difference between a demo and a deployment

Bundle sizing

Everyone gets put on the same bundle in a trial. In production, an occasional user and a power user should not cost the same, and sizing is what makes the numbers work.

Matched to how people actually work

Cost going the wrong way

Always-on running mode, oversized bundles and idle desktops make WorkSpaces look more expensive than the laptops it replaces. It usually is not, once it is configured properly.

Where self-managed deployments overspend

Then: getting to production

Golden images, multi-AZ, connectivity back to your applications, and someone to run it after launch. The work that turns a working trial into something you can put people on.

The part after the proof of concept
A trial that stops moving usually stops for good

Three ways this ends.

Trials rarely get formally cancelled. They just sit until the person driving them moves on to something else.

Leave it sitting

The environment stays up, nobody has time to finish it, and in three months the evaluation quietly lapses. You are back to buying laptops.

No new spend · the original problem is still there · idle resources still billing

Push through it yourselves

Entirely doable with the right AWS experience in house. The question is whether the person who has it also has three spare weeks.

No external cost · weeks of internal time · sizing mistakes are expensive to unwind

Bring in someone who does this weekly

We clear the directory, network and sizing work in the first week, then take it to production or hand it back, whichever you prefer.

Scoped engagement · the evaluation gets a real answer · cost modelled before you commit

Worth saying plainly: sometimes the honest answer after a week is that this is not the right fit for your estate. We would rather tell you that than sell you a migration.

Whether this is worth your time

Being straight about the fit costs us a few calls and saves everyone a wasted month.

Worth a conversation

  • A WorkSpaces trial or pilot that is up but not progressing
  • Stuck on directory integration, bundle sizing, or cost
  • An existing Active Directory the environment has to work with
  • A real delivery problem behind the trial: contractors, distributed staff, BYOD or an aging fleet

Probably not us

  • Just browsing the free tier with no problem behind it
  • Graphics-heavy workstations, which is our GPU virtual desktops offer
  • Committed to Azure Virtual Desktop or Windows 365 already
  • Wanting device management or helpdesk rather than the environment

Twenty minutes, and you'll know what is blocking it

A conversation with an engineer who has done this many times, not a discovery call with a salesperson. Here is what happens on it:

  • Where exactly the trial stopped, and what you tried
  • What your directory and network look like today
  • How many users production would need to cover
  • What the first week would clear, and what it would cost to run
  • Whether WorkSpaces is the wrong fit for your estate, which we will say if it is

Not ready for a call? Email sales@cloudlife.io and we'll answer in writing.

20 minutes · with an engineer

Pick a time that works

Open calendar, real availability this week. Bring your user count and the error you are stuck on, if you have one.

Get the trial unstuck
Not ready for a call? Send the details and we'll reply in writing.
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AWS Advanced Tier Services PartnerAWS Digital Workplace CompetencyAWS Generative AI Competency

Cloud Life Consulting · AWS Advanced Tier Partner · Digital Workplace Competency · Generative AI Competency

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