Case Study

Rugby Football Union adopts Citrix access solution

The RFU has been working closely with Centralis, a Citrix Solution Advisor Platinum partner, to implement its Elite Player Analysis System (EPAS) on Citrix Presentation Server TM 4.0, Enterprise Edition with Secure Gateway and Web Interface for Citrix® Presentation Server.

Overview

	The delivery of EPAS using Presentation Server has provided the RFU with a secure, reliable and scalable platform for its elite rugby IT system.
	Ewen Anderson, Managing Director, Centralis

The Rugby Football Union (RFU) has implemented a new Citrix® access solution for its bespoke player analysis system across the UK.

The Customer

The Rugby Football Union is the governing body for the Game in England and comprises of approximately 2000 clubs, 27 Constituent Bodies (Counties), the Armed Forces, and Oxford and Cambridge Universities and Students. The RFU currently has over three hundred permanent staff working from its headquarters in Twickenham and in regional Schools and Referees centre in Wolverhampton.

The EPAS & Citrix Solution

The RFU has been working closely with Centralis, a Citrix Solution Advisor Platinum partner, to implement its Elite Player Analysis System (EPAS) on Citrix Presentation Server TM 4.0, Enterprise Edition with Secure Gateway and Web Interface for Citrix® Presentation Server. The EPAS system, which includes player’s electronic medical records and information on their fitness and development tracking, is now being delivered to all England rugby academies, premiership rugby clubs and centrally at the RFU’s headquarters at Twickenham.

Ewen Anderson, Managing Director at Centralis said: "The delivery of EPAS using Presentation Server has provided the RFU with a secure, reliable and scalable platform for its elite rugby IT system. We worked closely with the team at the RFU to identify and develop the most effective system configuration to optimise performance and reliability."

Centralis initially carried out a health check on the RFU system in 2005 which reviewed the existing Citrix deployment against best practices and investigated printing and application performance issues. The health check concluded that, to optimise performance, the system needed to be migrated to Presentation Server 4.0 to take advantage of the significant improvements in resilience, user experience and printing.

	The migration programme Centralis developed ensured continual access to the system throughout the migration, allowing our users to access vital information at all times.
	Mike Morris, RFU

Mike Morris at RFU said: "It was vital that the EPAS system remained available to existing users throughout the development process. The migration programme Centralis developed ensured continual access to the system throughout the migration, allowing our users to access vital information at all times."

The new system is already delivering huge benefits.  "By migrating to Presentation Server 4.0 we have increased the number of users that can access EPAS at any one time, dramatically improved session reliability and resolved all the printing issues."

The new system is based around the Enterprise Edition of Presentation Server 4.0, which allows the use of Resource Manager for recording session statistics and for effective server monitoring through integration with Microsoft® Operations Manager. The two main player databases available through EPAS were published via a Web Interface and Secure Gateway combination using the Secure Web Access build developed by Centralis security consultants. The new build hardens the default Windows server build to guard against attacks from external sources on the Internet.

With EPAS now delivering a consistent and reliable service the RFU is planning to develop the system to cover all playing aspects of England and Premiership teams.
 

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