Challenge.
Azqore is a solutions provider who was wishing to reduce complexity and work with tools that are easy to manage. Azqore’s head of IT also wanted to refresh their VDI environment, make all of their workstations virtual machines, and migrate their IT fleet to Windows 10 with the objective of 1,000 users.
Solution.
“We started with an aging infrastructure based on old concepts that didn’t allow us to be efficient in managing our hardware and licenses. We had to optimise everything because the costs involved were far too high, in particular we had too many machines in relation to our needs. The objective was to reduce the number of our fixed workstations so that they represent less than 10% of our installed base, the rest being virtual workstations, while taking into account the specificity of our business. So we wanted a single VDI according to our place of origin, the constraints linked to the banking environment imposing this concept on us, as well as different accesses depending on whether you are internal to our company or an external service provider," Sébastien Monnaert told us.
We therefore needed to replace their existing infrastructure. The choice was for Dell Technologies’ HCI solution, based on the Flex On Demand model, in order to keep costs under control at all times. Our experts then proceeded in line with our best practices. They started by conducting an audit of the existing infrastructure, then defined the architecture as well as the various configurations to put in place in the data centre. Installation and configuration of VxRail was also conducted, and Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop solutions were deployed.
Our experts and Azqore’s IT team then tested and evaluated the new platform. After validation of the package, the solution for hosting Windows 10 virtual desktops was successfully deployed. "The communication between the different parties involved, the expertise of the Bechtle Experts and the understanding of our workings have made this project a success," says Azqore’s infrastructure manager.
It was very easy for us to work with Bechtle. Our key account manager and surrounding teams always knew how to be present at the right time, showing responsiveness, flexibility and adaptability in all circumstances.
Sébastien Monnaert, Head of Infrastructure, Azqore
Benefits.
“The advantages gained by this solution are radical in terms of hardware. But not only that, we have also optimised and standardised our way of working, facilitated our deployments and thus optimised our costs. Obviously, this new solution brings us much more mobility and agility internally and also boosts our reactiveness. Now with an agile and scalable infrastructure, we can also manage cost pressures with Dell Technologies’ Flex On Demand, which allows us to scale our infrastructure as we need it, while keeping our expenses under control. The VDI solution allows us a potential gain on all of our workstations, we only pay for VDI licenses and we have also optimised our licensing resources.
This implementation will simplify our migration to Windows 10 and the management of our entire IT infrastructure. We will benefit from our new infrastructure to upgrade our endpoints and simplify the migration to Windows 10,” Azqore’s head of infrastructure explains.
"In addition, our new VDI structure now serves one of our clients—a banking institution—which benefits from total mobility at its new headquarters. It also allows us, thanks to a management of access rights by group, even via a private desktop, to connect securely from the home of each user. This makes us highly reactive in times of crisis, we are less vulnerable to computer viruses and ready for situations such as facing Covid-19," concludes Sébastien Monnaert.
Partners.