The AppSense User Virtualization Platform enables the migration process of 4,500 users to Citrix, operating on a Cisco UCS blade infrastructure, as smoothly and efficiently as migrating a single user. This removes much of the complexity and cost associated with such a wide-scale desktop transformation project, while maintaining a consistent user experience.
Roll-out began in January 2012 and will continue throughout the year in 500-user increments.
As UHSM’s employees are migrated to the new environment each will witness first-hand the benefits of user virtualization, such as the ability to access all of their settings – from custom dictionaries to toolbars, network shares, printers and more – and the ability for IT to push user defined policy, all regardless of their location or device. Implementing AppSense technologies is also an important element in managing application licenses.
User Virtualization is not all about migration but about future-proofing the business by separating the user from the operating system and applications thus enabling UHSM to be more agile and able to adopt new technologies, such as cloud, and new strategies, such a BYOD, with the minimum of cost and disruption while maintaining consistency for the user so they are as productive as possible.
Mark Wright, head of service management at UHSM, said: “Perhaps the biggest accolade to AppSense’s software is in the transparency of the transition; our students and staff have been able to continue their work without disruption. It will also support our future IT strategies as we will already have virtualised the user so this means we can deliver a consistent and personalized user experience no matter what changes we make, where the user is of what device they are using.”
“The management of multiple users, each with their own settings and applications, remains one of the biggest headaches for IT departments today. A device-centric IT system is inflexible and slows the user down while increasing management overheads. For UHSM’s IT department, it was essential that it could effectively manage multiple users without tying each user down to a certain desktop computer,” explains Nick Lowe, VP of EMEA at AppSense.
“AppSense user virtualization has enabled South Manchester University Hospital to shift to a more user-centric model that not only supports its current needs, but also provides the means for IT to enable a strategic transformation of the business in the future.”
AppSense user virtualization technology is being delivered to the University Hospital of South Manchester in partnership with ANS Group.