EBS builds on remote collaboration with Citrix XenDesktop
Introduction to EBS
EBS is a mutual building society with almost 400,000 members and 100 branches throughout Ireland. The organisation provides a range of financial products, including mortgages, savings and investment offerings, credit cards and insurance.
Founded in 1935, EBS remains true to its founding principle of mutual member support - focusing on collective long-term interests rather than the short-term demands of shareholders. 40% of first-time buyers chose EBS as their mortgage provider last year.
Safeguarding the developers' code
EBS uses a number of bespoke applications to underpin the successful day-to-day running of its business. Many of these are developed in house - but sometimes, third-party IT specialists collaborate with the company's IT team to maintain operational efficiency and alleviate the pressure on internal developers.
These external developers are often called on at very short notice and at a low cost, to take the pressure off the IT team during peak times, which left EBS with a security and compliance challenge:
"Third-party developers need to access and share code with our in-house team," explained Neil Deane, IT Architect at EBS. "What we had to find, therefore, was a way this code could be shared with external staff - to safeguard our intellectual property and ensure we comply with regulatory requirements."
Solving the security tight-spot
EBS' IT team knew that the key to the solution was keeping the code in a central location, so external developers could access their systems quickly and efficiently without compromising company security. After consulting with Maxima Ireland, EBS agreed that a virtual desktop solution would rise to the company's security challenge.
EBS and Maxima Ireland chose to implement Citrix XenDesktop rather than any other virtual desktop offering because of its numerous benefits - including its rapid deployment capacity; excellent management tools; and unique operating system streaming technology. Above all, it was selected because of its superior end-user experience, accessed via Citrix's high-performance ICA protocol.
To provide the underlying virtualisation platform, EBS opted for Microsoft's Hyper-V (which is included in Windows Server 2008) to take advantage of its low cost, reliability and integration with Microsoft System Centre management tools. Citrix XenDesktop integrates seamlessly with Hyper-V, just as it does with Citrix XenServer and VMware ESX.
Maxima Ireland built the custom virtualisation solution for EBS, using Citrix XenDesktop on the Microsoft Hyper-V virtualisation platform. Combined with the EBS-designed VPN and associated security infrastructure, the solution has enabled the company's IT department to deliver a stable, secure and high-performance virtual desktop - capable of supporting the latest software development tools regardless of location, while ensuring
all corporate data and intellectual property is protected.
"As well as the security and efficiency benefits, the solution naturally evolves into a general-purpose remote support suite," added Deane. "So for the future, third-party engineers and support technicians can access the EBS systems they require, supporting our in-house IT - without compromising security."
Technical benefits of Citrix XenDesktop
• Corporate desktops delivered in minutes rather than hours or days, freeing up the valuable time of IT support staff
• XenDesktop is inherently secure as all desktops remain in the datacentre (only keystrokes, mouse clicks and screen updates are sent to the client device)
• Overheads associated with desktop management are substantially reduced as XenDesktop uses a single image to provision multiple virtual desktops, drastically reducing patch and upgrade maintenance efforts and cutting storage costs of hosted virtual desktops
• XenDesktop is hardware agnostic, so virtual desktops can run on any devices (such as thin clients, PCs and Macs)
• XenDesktop is accessed via the optimised ICA protocol, enabling the IT department to deliver a corporate desktop to practically any device and over any network connection
Business Benefits of Citrix XenDesktop
• A lower cost of desktop ownership through centralisation and simplification of desktop lifecycle management
• XenDesktop increases businesses agility to respond to change in today's increasingly dynamic world
• Opportunities for further cost reduction through outsourcing without compromised productivity or security
Why Maxima?
Maxima is dedicated to providing a professional service or solution that is aligning to the objectives of the business. Maxima has a wealth of knowledge and experience in both Virtualisation and Business Intelligence with key vendor relationships with Citrix, Microsoft, Business Objects, SAP and Oracle and has offices in
Ireland, UK and the US.
