Case Study

CLAM, Citrix and Centralis combine to bring remote workers into the LAN

Covers CLAM and Citrix MetaFrame.

The Customer

Centrica prides itself on providing high availability, high quality support to all its users, however, the organisation was finding that the service and support it could offer to its remote workers were falling short of its standards. Centrica reviewed and evaluated their remote working solutions, in order to identify the problem areas and implement a new solution.

The company already has an effective, well managed centralised Citrix MetaFrame solution, designed to keep costs of ownership to a minimum. However, its remote working solution did not offer the vitally important remote users the same level of support, performance and resilience as its LAN-based users.

The customer’s Project Manager commented, "Technically, we couldn’t support home workers as well as we would like. The technology they were using was prone to failure. We approached Centralis and asked them to find a different way of delivering our desktop to remote workers. They looked into the alternatives and put together a comprehensive proposal."

	Technically, we couldn’t support home workers as well as we would like
	Centrica Project Manager

The Problems

Centralis began by carrying out a consultancy exercise - interviewing technical support staff, help desk staff, management and users to identify the key business drivers, user requirements, current problems and planned future directions. The main problems highlighted by this exercise included:

Remote users operated from a variety of desktop builds and application versions that were proving difficult to keep track of and expensive to support and fix;

• some of the remote equipment would require substantial modification to run standard applications
• users were experiencing hardware, software and connectivity problems
• upgrades to software to resolve problems were being used on a reactive rather than pro-active basis, increasing support costs and time to fix
• help desk staff were not able to offer the same level of support to remote users as users on the LAN

Centrica’s centralised desktop solution offered a simple, standard method of issuing applications to users and diagnosing problems via the helpdesk, but this option was not available to remote workers. Based on this report, Centralis were asked to propose a solution that could meet the identified needs.

Identifying the Solution

Centralis investigated technologies which could simplify the build, support and desktop interface of the remote desktops. However, in most cases, these would have required extensive changes to the existing central management of users and applications.

Centralis therefore proposed a preferred alternative which involved designing a locked down desktop build using their CLAM software to access application delivery from the centralised Citrix MetaFrame and Windows Terminal Server farm.

The CLAM graphical user interface package replaces the Windows shell on the client PC with a secure, centrally managed interface, delivering Terminal Server and MetaFrame sessions. CLAM provides the user with a simple interface whilst protecting the PC client by preventing the user from accessing unauthorised applications or settings.

The users would get improved performance and reliability, while the company would have a remote working solution that was as effectively managed as its LAN solution. Centralis based their solution on their networking philosophy: Simplify, Standardise, Centralise™: simplify the client to become a commodity device, standardise the installation of software and centralise the management, update and support.

The customer’s Project Manager commented, "It was clear that Citrix MetaFrame and Windows Terminal Servers would give us the ability to deliver our full suite of applications to both Local Area Network based and remote workers, regardless of the operating system of the client PCs, and that adding CLAM to this solution would resolve the majority of our support issues."

Following a successful proof of concept demonstration of the solution in action, Centralis were commissioned to design a solution suitable for an initial pilot group of 250 remote workers, with the design goal of incorporating many more users if the pilot met with user and management approval.

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Implementing the Solution

Centralis’ remote access solution for the company is an innovative combination of CLAM, Windows Terminal Server and Citrix MetaFrame.

The Citrix MetaFrame server farm provides the delivery mechanism for the applications, sending only keystrokes and screen updates over the remote connections via ISDN or PSTN. Finally, Centralis’ CLAM package protects the client from unauthorised user changes. “Centralis has brought the remote users into an environment that we can now support. We can resolve any faults centrally and manage and upgrade software centrally.”

Centrica’s Business Manager at Centralis, Richard Berridge explains, "If you want to make savings by using thin client technology you have to be willing to invest in the right infrastructure and the experience to make it work - there is no room for half measures in a truly centralised solution."

	Centralis has brought the remote users into an environment that we can now support. We can resolve any faults centrally and manage and upgrade software centrally
	Centrica Project Manager

The Results

As far the users are concerned, the solution has addressed their problems relating to the time it was taking them to log onto the network and the unpredictability of the connection once made.

The Customer’s Project Manager commented, "Our users are very impressed with the speed and reliability of the connection. Centralis has implemented the solution in such a way that the users are able to look at our customised desktop, and everything that they need to do their job is located on their server and it takes them seconds to connect instead of seven or eight minutes."

This is a completely new way of working. Instead of working locally and saving locally, remote users are working from a server located at the company’s HQ. Initially, this raised concerns about the cost of connection for the user, but this is taken care of using Toll Save. Toll Save enables the routers to drop the active part of the connection to the company when users stop working, but reconnect automatically when they next press a key.

The Project Manager explained, "Users were concerned about the cost of keeping the line up for long periods of time. However, they are now starting to appreciate that the Toll Save function ensures that, even if they are logged on for 15 hours, they are only actually billed for the actual time they were using the system, which is more likely to be a matter of minutes."

For the customer, one of the key benefits of the implementation is the support they can now provide. Previously remote workers only received support up to 6 p.m. because the help desk could not support them working locally. Now that they are connected to the corporate LAN and the help desk can see their desktop they can be supported until 11 p.m., allowing them greater flexibility in terms of working hours.

By simplifying the desktop and standardising the applications the customer has significantly reducing the costs of managing and supporting the remote workers. Centralis have succeeded in providing a solution which delivers LAN performance to the remote worker and yet requires no management overhead compared with LAN workers.

The Project Manager confirmed, "Centralis has brought the remote users into an environment that we can now support. We can resolve any faults centrally and manage and upgrade software centrally. Centrica has now used CLAM strategically since the software was first developed in 1999, and has gone on to deploy several thousand seats across the enterprise. CLAM has played an important role in providing our high quality support to users, regardless of their location. The latest release adds in a range of desktop interface and central management features, which will further improve our ability to manage remote desktops."

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