Q&A with Tehama’s Nabeel Youakim: The Tehama Workroom and the Future of Hybrid Work

Recently we sat down to talk with Tehama’s Chief Development Officer, Nabeel Youakim, about Tehama’s Carrier for Work™ platform, and how combining DaaS, Security, Audit, and Networking to provide seamless hybrid workforce enablement, Tehama is transforming hybrid work.

Q: What is a “Carrier for Work™” platform?

A: A Carrier for Work™ combines many different components in order to support the secure transfer, or exchange, of work. At the heart of the Carrier for Work™ platform is the need to enable workers to transmit their work/data input (i.e. keyboard, mouse, screen) via an ‘application’ container to the data center and receive information/updates/data/output via the ‘application’ container. These data centers are located both on-premises and in the cloud.

Q: Why do businesses need a Carrier for Work™?

A: Up until now, there has been no “internet-native” platform to transfer work safely and securely between the data center and the desktop. The cloud-enabled and digital desktop delivery solutions, including Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and Desktop as a Service (DaaS), which many businesses used to deliver productivity to their end users are just one piece of the puzzle. Outside of this, networking, security, workflow automation, and other solutions are still required to fully deliver productivity to their end-users.

Today’s businesses need a purpose-built platform that makes work smarter, safer, and more productive. This platform must be a repeatable, highly scalable, turnkey solution that will enable the business to respond quickly to changing market dynamics, pursue new opportunities around the globe, support work-from-anywhere, and fulfill the cloud-first mandates that will position the business for accelerated growth and success. This purpose-built platform is the Tehama Carrier for Work™.

Q: What makes Tehama’s carriage offering different from other approaches?

A: Not long ago, the desktop lived inside the corporate firewall and was secured. It became the focal point for organizations because it housed all the work a person needed to be productive – the applications and the data. But, in the hybrid work world, there is much more to be taken into consideration. For example, with the desktop now in the cloud, new tools for connectivity and security (i.e. SASE) must be bolted onto the desktop. 

Tehama, with its carrier offering has taken a radically different approach, organically creating a hybrid work solution that does not feature the desktop at its core. Instead, Tehama considered all of the tools needed for hybrid work – security, compliance, networking, applications, desktops, monitoring, auditing, and the user/device, and then combined all of these for a complete solution. This is the Tehama Workroom. 

Q: How does the Tehama Workroom enable hybrid work?

A: I am very proud of the amazing job our development team has done in combining the required set of technologies needed to enable the Tehama Workroom. As organizations start to develop a truly hybrid workforce, they will soon realize that they simply cannot focus on just the desktop (physical/virtual/cloud) as the key enabler for hybrid work. 

Yes, the virtual desktop is still part of the Tehama Workroom, along with the 11 other tools (SASE, networking, monitoring, auditing, compliance, etc.) you need. But, the Tehama Workroom is a construct that was built from the ground up for a hybrid workforce. We did not bolt-on tools to a desktop!

Because Tehama’s Workrooms are virtual (in the cloud), they can be used anywhere a cloud footprint exists, and as close to the users as possible for the best possible performance (low latency). Further, applications (Windows, Linux, or SaaS) are hosted in the desktop/browser, for greater security and flexibility.

Q: What about security? How does the Tehama Workroom protect a business’s data and applications?

A: By grouping together employees, third-party contractors, gig workers (on demand), call center workers, knowledge workers, developers, scientists, financial analysts, medical specialists, graphical artists, animators, architects, and more), and providing them with the right access levels to role-specific tools, apps, policies, security, and data, Tehama is able to more simply and securely onboard and offboard end users, and ensure security and identity management protocols remain in place.

Q: Why should organizations engage with Tehama to enable hybrid work? 

A: We know that building a carrier for work can be an expensive, time-consuming, and risky proposition for most organizations as it requires resources (talent), training, tools, and most importantly time to execute all of the steps that are involved. Further, there are many vendors in this space that are singularly focused on certain solutions (i.e. connectivity, security, desktop delivery) while others build a few of the pieces together and then integrate with the other players to enable each customer to build a customized carrier for work solution.

Only Tehama offers a true “Carrier for Work™” platform that is a repeatable, scalable, turnkey offering that can be set up in one hour. The Tehama platform integrates with solutions offered by today’s leading VDI and DaaS providers, ensuring that every customer has all of the tools in place to enable hybrid work.

To learn more about how the Future of Work is being delivered by a carrier, click here.