Citrix helps Bath and North East Somerset Council mobilise its workforce

Local council drives increased productivity, increased customer service hours, flexibility and lower costs with Citrix.

Friday, 29th July 2016 Posted 8 years ago in by Phil Alsop

Bath and North East Somerset Council (BANES) has deployed Citrix secure app and desktop virtualisation and networking technologies to transform its workplace by significantly reducing energy consumption and IT costs, whilst improving workforce mobility, flexibility and collaboration.

BANES serves a population of 180,000 including the historic City of Bath, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the surrounding rural area of North East Somerset. The council has 2,500 IT users. Many of these employees need to be mobile as part of their job; for example, visiting local residents and businesses, working with partner organisations or simply moving between office buildings.

Anywhere, anytime working

BANES worked with Platinum Citrix Solution Advisor Cetus<http://www.cetus-solutions.com/> to design a solution that would meet their needs to replace ageing PC hardware, update the Windows XP operating system, support energy conservation and deliver a more flexible workstyle.

The solution was based on Citrix XenDesktop, delivering a secure virtual desktop to all council users. This was combined with Citrix XenApp and Microsoft Application Virtualisation (App-V) to virtualise a significant majority of the council's applications so users could access a familiar desktop that contained the applications they required. The virtual desktop, running on BANES' servers with Atlantis ILIO, is delivered using XenDesktop to IGEL thin-client terminals in the council's offices. NetScaler Unified Gateway provides secure delivery and flexible, remote access to the enterprise applications, including the virtual desktop for users outside the council offices, whether they use personal PCs, tablets or smartphones.

Key benefits include:

*   Improved workforce mobility, flexibility and collaboration across locations, devices and networks, ensuring optimal convenience and productivity wherever staff are. Over 1,500 of the council's 2,500 employees have signed up to work from home on a regular basis as a result of the initiative. In fact, across the council, remote working and the freedom to securely access applications and information have contributed to a reduction of around 400,000 business miles traveled per year
*   Reduced desktop power consumption - the IT Services team's decision to deploy thin-client terminals enterprise-wide has contributed to lower energy usage and cost savings, with total council energy savings projected to be ?250,000 per year. Moving away from PCs and laptops that use c.365 watts to very energy-efficient 11-watt thin-client devices has had a significant impact. As part of the council's broader objectives one service centre, the Keynsham civic centre, received an "A" rating Display Energy Certificate (DEC), helped in part by initiatives such as thin client terminals. The DEC A rating is held by less than 1 per cent of public buildings in the UK
*   Improved IT costs and reduced administrative time - overall, the infrastructure has saved 50 per cent over traditional solutions, cutting the unit cost per device to around ?200 and tripling the life of devices to as much as 10 years, rather than three or four. The solution is more resilient and delivers higher performance

BANES' virtual desktop has been very successful. All main council offices have a ratio of two desks to three people. Staff members can sit wherever they choose to support their day's work, encouraging cross-functional collaboration and ad hoc teaming. The virtual desktop has now been rolled out to all council offices and operational buildings. As a result, the council has closed seven major offices and reduced total floor space by 40 per cent, enabling revenue savings of ?3.5m per year.