Case Study

Moat Housing Group selects Citrix and Centralis to modernise strategic access

Citrix Presentation Server 4.0 is a key component of the Moat Housing Group’s overall modernisation program, supporting centralisation of data and resources, timely and efficient application delivery and secure flexible working solutions.

Overview

Working with Platinum Citrix® Solution Advisor, Centralis, Moat Housing Group is deploying a Citrix Access Solution which delivers general office and personal productivity software together with core business applications to over two hundred users across multiple sites in the south-east of England. This is expected to be scaled to around 500 users, providing strategic application access for the whole group.

	Investment in Citrix Presentation Server 4.0 is a key component of the groups overall modernisation program providing a foundation on which many other key parts of the program will be delivered. These include centralisation of data and resources, timely and efficient application delivery and secure flexible working solutions.
	Barry Foster, IT Manager, Moat Housing Group

The organisation has invested not just in Citrix software, but in a proven implementation methodology and best practice standards and procedures, resulting in an Access Solution which has been designed to meet the organisation’s current and future requirements. This has included elements such as application delivery and administration through to system management on a daily and long-term basis.

Moat now has in place a solid foundation for providing secure and reliable access to a standard and supportable set of business applications to staff wherever they need to work, be it at any office within the organisation, at home, at local authority and partner premises or even whilst out in the field.

The Customer

Moat is one of the leading housing associations in the south east of England, providing high-quality homes and services, with particular strength in solutions for key workers in the challenging housing market of this part of the country.

Owning and managing approximately 14,000 homes throughout Kent, Sussex, Essex, Hertfordshire and South London, Moat is developing around 900 additional new homes each year and employs around 500 staff.

The organisation headquarters are currently based in Sevenoaks in Kent, with other sites in London, Maldon and Medway and a number of smaller sites at locations throughout the south-east. During April 2006 Moat will be moving a large proportion of its Sevenoaks based staff and computer systems to a new purpose built headquarters and data centre based on the Crossways Estate in Dartford.

The Access Challenge

Moat identified the need to deliver key business applications and resources to personnel spread across its multiple locations, including those staff working from home or out in the field. It was important that this access be provided with minimal expenditure on network and telecommunications but while still delivering a fast and reliable service.

Moat invited Centralis, a leading provider of access solutions, to discuss its business objectives and review its IT options. Following this initial meeting, a scoping exercise was conducted that identified the potential benefits that would accrue from a strategic implementation of Citrix Presentation Server 4.0.

The project started with an examination of Moat’s infrastructure and this led to a detailed design for implementation of a 10-server Citrix Presentation Server 4.0 farm. The new farm has been designed and built in parallel to an existing Citrix MetaFrame XP farm with the ability for users to access either the existing or replacement farm based on each individual’s requirements during the transition process.

Centralis also designed and implemented a fully fault tolerant replacement Citrix Secure Gateway solution to give access to both farms using a web browser across the Internet.

Having access to both old and new systems has enabled Moat personnel to experience not only the new access provision, but also to evaluate new versions of applications, including Microsoft Office 2003 prior to full scale organisation-wide roll out.

	Centralis have been an excellent partner to work with on this project, like us they really understand the importance of establishing and following clearly defined best practice approaches to the design and implementation of modern day solutions. Their final project documentation is also one of the best
	Barry Foster, IT Manager, Moat Housing Group

The detailed approach taken to analysing and agreeing the requirements identified a number of areas where improvements could be made in delivering and managing the access solution. The first of these concerned the delivery of applications to the Citrix servers, which had previously been carried out on a manual basis, server by server. This led to minor differences between servers and resulted in an inconsistent user experience - Centralis advised that this process be simplified and standardised through the use of a purpose-built toolset. As a consequence, Macrovision Admin Studio was used to package each application to be delivered consistently across the farm using Citrix’s Installation Manager, eliminating the source of a number of support issues.

The Centralis Solution

The organisation wanted a solution which was designed professionally, was delivered to the highest standards and provided scope for expansion and the introduction of new facilities. Centralis works to a structured methodology that takes advantage of industry best practice for project management, systems design and long-term systems management. This meant that Centralis not only looked at the applications to be deployed and the infrastructure that would support it - they also looked at the procedures and systems in place which would determine whether it could be managed and be a long-term success.

	Centralis quickly stood out as leaders in their field with a clear understanding of current technology and how it can be applied to the needs and challenges faced by businesses today.
	Barry Foster, IT Manager, Moat Housing Group

The structured approach used by Centralis is based on that used by Citrix Consulting Services themselves and is intended to ensure that the proposed solution is appropriate and meets or exceeds customer expectations. A phased approach is taken to ensure that each stage of the process has met its objectives and been signed off by the customer before proceeding. This ensures that the customer is not only aware of progress being made, but is also an integral part of the project itself. This philosophy of customer involvement builds on the structured project methodology to ensure that the result is a successful implementation with which the customer is comfortable, and which meets their requirements.

Working closely with Centralis throughout the process, Barry Foster of Moat and key members of his team were ideally placed to see how this approach led to the deployment of a solution which was designed to meet the Organisation’s needs exactly.

Benefits

The Citrix Access solution is providing Moat with a manageable platform from which its applications and services can be extended to any individual, as long as they have either access to the corporate network or Internet connection and a web browser.

The centralised nature of the Citrix deployment provides a single point of change for delivering business applications and services - it is not necessary to visit users to install applications on their individual PCs and support calls will be reduced as a consequence. The delivery of the organisation’s standard applications and resources will now be a much simpler process, reducing costs and improving the user experience.

Neil Burton, the Not For Profit Sector Account Manager at Centralis comments, "This project has highlighted the business benefits that an Access Strategy can deliver, including increased operational efficiency and the reduction of recurrent costs. In addition it enables the workforce to be mobile, and to have the flexibility to work at the client's premises and other remote offices, as well as allowing capacity for branch office expansion/relocation.

"Not for Profit organisations work on limited IT funds and have to ensure that every penny is spent wisely. Moat Housing have proved that you can implement an innovative Citrix Access solution on a tight budget and obtain real value for money with visible results for the whole organisation.”

The last word goes to the customer :
"Centralis are a very professional organisation, their pre-sales, project management, support and consulting staff have been first class in the execution of this project. It’s been a pleasure working with them over the last year and I’m sure it will continue to be so with this and other associated projects as we develop our systems to meet the future needs of our business.

If you are considering projects similar to ours then don’t just take my word for it, you really need to add these guys to your shortlist, I can highly recommend them."  Barry Foster, IT Manager, Moat Housing Group

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