AWS Marketplace

Enabling a remote workforce with Tehama from AWS Marketplace

Our customers often need to set up and provision highly secure, compliant, and auditable remote work solutions for workers in various regions, and they need it done quickly. Tehama enterprise desktop-as-a-service (DaaS), powered by AWS and available in AWS Marketplace, enables organizations to do exactly that.

In this post, I’ll show you how to set up a ready-to-work Tehama desktop in a secure virtual Tehama Room and then audit room and desktop activity. This enables you to get employees and contractors anywhere in the world up and running quickly on secure virtual Linux or Windows desktops.

Solution overview: Enabling a remote workforce with Tehama

A. Prerequisites

Create a Tehama account if you do not have one already.

  1. Navigate to Tehama in AWS Marketplace.
  2. Select Continue to Subscribe.
  3. To configure your software contract:
    1. Choose how long you want the contract to run: 12, 24, or 36 months.
    2. Select a Renewal Setting (Yes or No) to determine if the contract will auto-renew.
    3. Choose your preferred pricing option. The pricing options each represent a different monthly Tehama Compute Unit (TCU) usage threshold. Each resource (Room or desktop) you create in Tehama immediately consumes TCU’s.

Tehama Customer Success will set up your account, and then you will receive a welcome email with instructions to access it.

B. Setting up a Tehama virtual desktop

  1. Log in to Tehama with multi-factor authentication (MFA). At the core of Tehama’s platform is a unique architecture that creates a secure perimeter called a Tehama Room, and within that room, users can access secure virtual desktops. On the main page, choose Rooms in the navigation pane, if necessary, to see the following:
    • A list of existing rooms
    • How many users are in each Room
    • The Room’s access policy
    • The Room’s status (connected, disconnected, or archived)
  1. Set up a new Room by following these steps.
    • In the top right of the page, choose New.
    • Enter a name for the room: for example, Test Room.
    • Under Connect this Room to, choose your organization or a third-party organizatio
    • Choose a R
    • Select the check box to include the Tehama File Vault feature with this Room.
    • Choose Continue.
  1. Configure additional settings for the new Room.
    • Under Desktop Settings, select the Give Desktop Administrator privileges check box.
    • Under Network Access Configuration, for Network Access Mode, choose Internet Only. (The Tehama Gateway option is necessary if you wish to connect desktops to your corporate network, but requires additional configuration).
    • Choose Finish.
  1. After the Room finishes building, invite users to it.
    • On the Rooms page, choose the new Room you created in steps 1-3.
    • On the Members tab, under My Organization, choose + Member and add individuals or teams from either inside or outside your organization.

On this tab, you can also add a new organization to the Room. This enables you to provide desktops to people from other organizations, like contractors.

    • Under My Organization, choose Add Organization.
    • In the Add Organization modal, for Organization, choose Invite a New Organization.
    • If applicable, use the Policy dropdown to designate an organization-specific access policy.
    • Choose Next.
    • On the next step of the modal, enter a name for the organization and enter a name and email address for each primary point of contact.
    • Choose Invite.
  1. Finally, provision and configure a desktop template for the new Room’s users. The following screenshot shows the Add Windows desktop template pop-up with a Desktop Template of Demo Template, a Specification of Windows 10 – Professional, and Power Save Mode set to Always On.

Tehama Add Windows desktop template pop-up with a Desktop Template of Demo Template, a Specification of Windows 10 - Professional, and Power Save Mode set to Always On.

    • On the Room’s page, choose Configure.
    • Choose Add Windows Desktop Template (alternatively, create a Linux template).
    • In the Add Windows Desktop Template dialog box, for Desktop Template, enter a name.
    • For Specification, choose the desktop specification that meets your needs. Choose Next: Assign to Members. An individual desktop will be created for each member you choose.
    • After selecting members, choose Create.

An individual desktop will be created for each member you choose.

C. Connecting to a desktop

Launch a desktop that has been created for you. You may need to wait up to 20 minutes after creating a desktop before it is ready for use. Once the desktop is created you will be able to immediately begin work.

  1. In the Web administration interface navigation pane, choose Desktops.
  2. In the list, locate the desktop you wish to launch.
  3. Press the Connect button.

D. Auditing Room and desktop activity

Room administrators can use the audit features to review Room activity and ensure compliance with your organization’s policies.

  1. On the Room’s Web administration interface, choose Audit.
  2. In the tab’s navigation pane, choose Activity Stream.
  3. Apply filters to view all activities that have occurred in the Room.
  4. In the tab’s navigation pane, choose Sessions.
  5. Review the video recording of any current or active desktop session. Session recording is an optional feature that is enabled by default. Disable this for your Room in Configure > Room Settings.

E. Cleaning up

Tehama Rooms and desktops immediately consume TCU’s when you create them. Consumption is pro-rated if you create Rooms and desktops partway through a month. To avoid these resources counting towards your TCU threshold next month, delete them before the end of the month.

Conclusion

In this post, I showed you how to create Tehama virtual rooms and invite users, enabling you to build a highly secure, auditable virtual workforce in minutes. I also explained how to configure and provision desktop templates (Windows or Linux) to your Room’s users, getting them working on their preferred desktop quickly. For more information, see Tehama in AWS Marketplace. You can also watch this on-demand webinar to learn how Tehama enabled one of its customers to rapidly deploy a virtual call center with Tehama and AWS.

The content and opinions in this post are those of the third-party author, and AWS is not responsible for the content or accuracy of this post.

About the authors

Danielle Morley

Danielle Morley, Senior Product Manager, Tehama

Danielle brings ten years of technology experience to Tehama, where she works closely with the Engineering and Go-To-Market teams to drive product improvements and launch new features. Danielle focuses on discovering customer needs and identifying where to invest in the product to deliver more value to customers.

Danielle has many years of experience working with innovative, high-growth B2B SaaS products. Before joining Tehama, Danielle was Senior Product Manager at ProntoForms, focusing on the digital transformation of enterprise organizations with a mobile workforce.

Ji JungJi Jung is a Solutions Architect focusing on AWS Marketplace, AWS Control Tower, and AWS Service Catalog. He is passionate about cloud technologies and building innovative solutions to help customers. When not working, he enjoys spending time with his family and playing sports.