At AWS Re:Invent 2023 AWS launched new capabilities for Amazon WorkSpaces that will help create synergies for the Webex Suite and Webex Contact Center to continue providing reliable, secure cloud solutions for collaboration and customer experience.
Run Webex Contact Center on the new Amazon WorkSpaces Thin Client
Webex Contact Center is a cloud-based contact center platform that enables businesses to connect customer experiences across all the ways customers want to engage – proactive messaging, self-service, and human-assisted engagement. With broad channel support, Webex Contact Center allows customers to communicate in their individual channel of choice – whether that is voice, text, email, social messaging, or more, and ensures that agents have context and intelligence across the entire customer journey.
The Amazon WorkSpaces Thin Client maximizes end-user and IT staff productivity-supporting a wide range of end users with cost-effective, secure, easy-to-manage access to virtual desktops. End-user setup takes less than five minutes to connect to monitors, peripherals, network, and the virtual desktop. WorkSpaces Thin Client improves security by preventing local data storage or loading of applications on the device and simplifies monitoring and access control with its device management service. We are happy to announce that Webex Contact Center is supported on the brand-new Amazon WorkSpaces Thin Client to simplify and reduce the start-up costs of a customer support agent.
“As an industry leader and a trusted AWS partner, Webex Contact Center by Cisco aligns with our vision of the Amazon WorkSpaces Thin Client. With a commitment to seamless solutions, we love the idea that customers can use the Webex platform on the WorkSpaces Family of services to ensure the best experiences possible.”
– Muneer Mirza, General Manager of AWS End User Computing
In addition, Cisco peripherals, including headsets and desk cameras, are also validated to work with Amazon WorkSpaces Thin Client.
Enhance Webex for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) with Amazon WorkSpaces
Leveraging a cloud provider for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is an effective solution to address various cloud enablement challenges including audio and video performance, server overloading, bandwidth requirements, and network stability. To enhance audio and video performance in hybrid meetings and live calls conducted through VDI, Webex now offers extended support for virtual desktops through a dedicated Webex plugin for Amazon WorkSpaces.
“With the Webex dedicated plugin for Amazon WorkSpaces, users experience superior audio and video quality on their virtual desktop. Customers can seamlessly collaborate across their desktop and virtual desktops via messaging, calling, and other meeting features.”
The Webex plugin establishes a secure connection via a virtual channel within an Amazon WorkSpaces cloud-based desktop computing session. This effectively helps streamline the user experience by offloading audio and video processing to the user’s local device.
Additionally, when participating in a Webex Meeting or making a call within an Amazon WorkSpaces session, users can seamlessly configure audio and video devices through Webex’s native preferences. The plugin encodes and sends video and audio to the Webex Meeting or Calling service. At the same time, it takes video and audio from the Webex service and overlays it on the Webex client that is running in the Amazon WorkSpaces session.
The plugin tracks the position of the Webex App window and synchronizes audio and video actions to ensure seamless alignment of media. This means if you mute your microphone or turn your camera on or off, those changes happen on both your computer and the virtual desktop. And all of this happens behind the scenes, so users do not see any interruptions in their work.
With media transmitted directly from the local device to the server and encoding/decoding performed locally, users can experience exceptional media quality equivalent of the native Webex app. Utilizing the Webex App within Amazon WorkSpaces is akin to using a native Windows client, offering the same excellent user experience.
The Webex plugin for Amazon WorkSpaces is readily accessible and compatible with Amazon WorkSpaces employing the DCV protocol on Windows, with MacOS compatibility coming soon.
Learn more about the customer benefits of the AWS and Webex collaboration in this solution overview or visit us at AWS re:Invent 2023 to see the Webex Suite and Webex Contact Center solutions live.
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