IGEL, provider of operating systems (OS) for cloud workspaces, announced last week that England-based company Severn Trent has implemented its OS to manage and secure an estate of 6,000 desktop devices spread over 110 locations, supporting the business with a cloud migration strategy and adoption of Microsoft Office 365.
Severn Trent supplies 2 billion liters of clean water every day – that’s over 83 million liters every hour – whilst treating 3.1 billion liters of wastewater. It provides clean water and wastewater services to more than 4.6 million households and businesses in the Midlands and Wales, as well as developing renewal energy solutions such as anaerobic digestion, hydropower, solar and wind turbines. It also employs around 7,000 staff.
The company first implemented thin client computing in 2010 when it moved into a custom-built head office in the center of Coventry. The technology was installed to lower desktop power consumption and boost energy efficiency. However, this solution was not able to last.
Mark Challis, Severn Trent’s technical specialist for end-user computing (EUC), explains, “Running our legacy thin client environment over the years has been incredibly difficult verging on the impossible. The management software has been hard to use such that we couldn’t easily update or patch the 6,000 endpoints we have across the business. Device security had become a major issue, too.”
In addition, the incumbent hardware couldn’t support Severn Trent‘s cloud migration journey. The business operates two UK-based data centers – one in Solihull, the other in Wokingham. The adoption of cloud services wholesale across the company had been driven by the need to vacate the Solihul site – the building lease was due to expire – rather than incur the huge cost of investing again in a physical location.
Working closely with Microsoft and Cognizant, all computing and storage platforms have now been migrated to Microsoft Azure, with Office 365 now adopted across the business. In tandem, Severn Trent shifted end-user computing from an on-premise desktop to a Citrix Cloud service hosted on the new Microsoft Azure platform.
Challis adds, “The legacy thin client terminals had an old version of Internet Explorer ‘baked’ into the firmware which doesn’t work with the version of Citrix Storefront we use for our VDA connections. This meant we couldn’t move forward with our Citrix estate upgrade, so it was absolutely crucial to change the endpoints as well as deploy a solution to enhance management.”
Challis continues, “In terms of selecting a new partner, our enterprise architect has a good relationship with Microsoft who recommended we speak to IGEL given they are dynamic vendor and are ahead of the curve when it comes to EUC digital workspaces.”
Severn Trent has purchased 6,000 IGEL OS licenses along with IGEL’s management software. This enables the EUC team to create profiles and distribute them quickly to each endpoint device. Challis explains, “The IGEL OS is lightweight at 1 GB. We can push a whole image out in minutes and have full visibility of each endpoint in real-time. It’s the speed we can update each endpoint which is impressive, along with the usability of UMS. This is of paramount importance given the number of locations we have.”
The business is currently in the implementation process. Around 2,400 devices have been installed at the Coventry HQ, chairman’s office in London and Severn Trent’s main call center in Derby. Over time, the roll out will cover all 110 locations to include water treatment and sewage works, two other call centers and a disaster recovery site.
SOURCE: IGEL
