07 Apr Virtual Apps Ensure Massive Savings
Hybrid work is here to stay, and IT managers must balance PC management that not only meets security requirements but also provides employees with resources to get work done without inconvenience.
Companies that run the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service with Microsoft Azure have seen improved desktop management and security. This is according to a Forrester Total Economic Impact study that examined the potential return on investment (ROI) enterprises may realise by deploying the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service.
The study shows that end users, including remote and hybrid workers, benefit with reduced issues and interruptions. It says cloud flexibility has helped reduce support calls, IT resource needs, and other costs while also increasing agility.
Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service is a desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) solution that allows IT departments to provision employees with a virtual PC and application environment as fast as — and identical to — locally installed operating systems and application software.
It allows employees to access their personalised desktop environment with customised applications from any device and location. Organisations can modernise their legacy virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) deployments by reducing on-premises server needs through a move to cloud. Additionally, they can leverage multisession features by adding in Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop entitlements.
Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service with Microsoft Azure provide secure, simplified PC management with a virtual application and desktop experience for employees. Organisations can take advantage of Citrix and Microsoft’s partnership for enhanced integration and flexible licensing options.
To better understand the benefits, costs, and risks associated with this investment, Forrester interviewed four customers with experience using the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service with Microsoft Azure.
In this study, Forrester aggregated the experiences of the interviewed customers and combined the results into a single composite organisation with 15 000 total employees and 5 000 regular Citrix cloud service users. Two thirds of these users were upgraded from a previous on-premises Citrix solution, and one-third were migrated to the new cloud solution as first-time users.
Prior to using Citrix cloud services, the customers managed applications and desktops from their own data centres, which was expensive to maintain, and it raised security and management challenges.
Citrix Cloud services run on a highly-available and globally-distributed infrastructure. Unique flexibility lets customers deploy resources in a public, private or hybrid cloud – or multiple clouds – or completely on-premises in one or more physical data centres. The result is optimal resiliency.
Customers saw high rates of support calls, particularly for employees without prior Citrix solutions, and they had difficulty delivering the same virtual experience to remote workers without additional software solutions.
Citrix Cloud provides the unexpected benefit of protection from IT-induced business interruptions and enhances business continuity preparedness. This is achieved by maximising uptime of critical applications and systems.
With Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service running workloads on Microsoft Azure, including the Azure Virtual Desktop entitlement, customers were able to deliver secure, managed virtual experiences for employees working anywhere on any device.
This was an especially valuable feature as a significant number of employees needed to transition to a work-from-home setting almost immediately. They could therefore have the same exact experience for home and at the office.
Some organisations migrated to the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service from their existing Citrix on-premises virtualisation implementation, while others were new to virtual applications and desktops with Citrix overall.
Representatives from interviewed organisations reported they were able to reduce helpdesk costs, improve business agility, speed up employee onboarding, reduce overall IT desktop
management resource needs, avoid significant software and hardware costs, and provide employees with a more effective and productive application and desktop experience.
Key findings
Citrix cloud services and Microsoft Azure enables a 10% improvement in IT efficiency. With Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service and workloads running on Microsoft Azure, IT managers can streamline PC management by standardising settings for user groups and locking down security.
Moving to the Citrix cloud service also alleviated traditional server, operating system, networking, and database maintenance activities associated with an on-premises deployment. The reduced support escalations and overall IT management needs add up to $2 million over three years.
There was a reduction of 3 000 help-desk tickets. With Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service, access to team documents and tools is easier for users, and it is also easier for admins to standardise settings across cloud deployments, reducing service interruptions and access problems.
Thousands of help-desk calls are avoided each year, adding up to about 33% of all PC-related calls. Calls that still occur are resolved in half the time. This adds up to a three-year benefit of $590,000.
Citrix cloud services enables 8 hours to be saved with each onboarded employee. Each new or transferred employee requires a PC, accounts to be set up and configured, HR materials, and other physical and software resources.
With Citrix cloud services, corporate-owned or personal device setup is significantly streamlined, as new resources can be immediately modified from a central cloud-based environment for access from any device.
Employee onboarding savings, enabled by Citrix cloud services and DaaS provisioning, adds up to $1.2 million over three years.
Legacy software and hardware savings total $1.1 million. Citrix cloud services can enable the reduction of on-premises data centre needs for some legacy software solutions. This leads to reduced costs related to software licensing, database administration, data centre operations services, or onsite server room costs, adding up to $1.1 million over three years.
Employee productivity improves by 5%. Employees with device management or information access problems would often face delays that kept them from getting work done. Migrating to Citrix cloud services helped reduce interruptions for these workers.
With Citrix, employees have convenient, secure access to company resources, allowing them to save significant amount of time, even when working remotely. This adds up to $1.9 million over three years.
In conclusion, with the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service and Microsoft Azure, employees are provided convenient tools to get work done with fewer added steps to ensure secure access. Survey respondents rated their organisation’s employee experience two years ago at an average of 84%. Today, that has increased 10 percentage points to 94%.
Helen Kruger is the CEO for Troye, South Africa