Case Study

Speedy Hire

Citrix and Centralis support exponential company growth.

Overview

Speeding up IT integration through centralisation - how Centralis’ innovative methodology enabled Speedy Hire to revitalise and refine disparate IT systems for acquired companies.

	Our aim was to bring all sites and employees under one centralised solution
	Dave Boulton, Infrastructure Project Manager, Speedy Hire

Company overview

Speedy Hire Plc is the UK’s largest  tool and equipment hire company. Since its formation in 1977, the firm has grown both organically and through the acquisition of complimentary equipment rental businesses.

The business now provides its customers with access to portable accommodation, lifting equipment, surveying and measurement instruments, compressed air and power generating equipment as well as high performance pumps.

Speedy Hire now employs more than 5000 staff and has 500 depots across the UK and Ireland.

Challenge

During 2007, Speedy reviewed its IT infrastructure, concluding that the existing systems were performing poorly.  At the time the company used Linux based workstations connecting to Microsoft Terminal Services, a solution that was also proving increasingly expensive to support.

Existing infrastructure failed to provide the scalability needed to support the needs of this fast growing company, in particular where newly acquired companies and their depots were running disparate systems.

As part of the review, Speedy looked at the effectiveness of the systems in place at newly acquired LGH, where a Citrix Presentation Server 4.5 environment was used to deliver applications to users. Speedy was impressed with the performance and flexibility that Citrix could offer.

LGH had been a long-standing customer of Centralis, engaging the Platinum Solution Advisor to implement its Citrix server farm prior to the Speedy takeover. Following discussions with Speedy, Centralis proposed building a new Citrix Presentation Server 4.5 proof of concept environment to confirm that Speedy’s key applications could be successfully delivered to its depots via a resilient, centralised service.

The proof of concept was successful and demonstrated that using Wyse thin-client terminals to replace the Linux workstations at depots would simplify installation and considerably reduce administration and support costs.

Solution

Based on the successful proof of concept, a proposal was agreed for Centralis to design and build a new Presentation Server 4.5 environment that would deliver applications to an initial test group of Speedy depots.

Centralis worked with key customer sponsors to analyse the business and IT requirements. This analysis allowed the lead Centralis consultant to design and build a solution that was fit for purpose in terms of application delivery, performance, reliability and scalability.

The design enabled Speedy to deliver a centralised solution based on standard hardware and applications at every depot across the UK, simplifying and accelerating rollout across the organisation.

A key challenge for all organisations is printing, so standardisation on just two printer models across all depots was agreed, reducing support and management overheads and minimising the costs of consumables.

The Presentation Server 4.5 farm was implemented at Speedy’s data centre in Altrincham with Centralis installing a number of key applications including Microsoft Axapta, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook, Internet Explorer, plus key line of business applications.

Making sure that the solution correctly fits user needs is also critical, so Centralis developed two versions of the published desktop, one for managers and the other for general users. This design was a simple way to ensure that only authorised employees could have access to restricted applications.

Centralis recommended and supplied AppSense Application Manager to allow the Microsoft software to be licensed per user device rather than across the whole organisation through the enterprise agreement site licence, with substantial software license savings as a result.

	..our IT infrastructure is now robust and flexible, allowing us to drive the company forward into the future with confidence.
	Dave Boulton, Infrastructure Project Manager, Speedy Hire

At the conclusion of the project Centralis also provided Speedy with project documentation and procedures to enable the company to extend the Citrix farm and rollout the systems and applications to depots as required.

There are currently approximately 800 users of the Citrix farm, with rollout to other depots continuing throughout the year. Scalability is built into the design providing Speedy with the capability to make further acquisitions in line with its strategy for growth.

Benefits

The Citrix Presentation Server 4.5 installation was built to best practice standards and specifically designed to meet Speedy’s operational needs for reliable and responsive delivery of applications and services.

The documentation and skills transfer provided by Centralis ensures that Speedy can quickly rollout new systems and applications using internal resources, providing greater flexibility and reduced operational costs.

With a centralised service and standardised equipment at all sites Speedy employees can work from any location without having to familiarise themselves with new desktops, services or systems.  Furthermore, the centralised solution can be managed remotely and the combination of packaged applications and simplified server builds enables future expansion to the farm to be carried out very quickly and easily. Overall, the customer has evolved their IT infrastructure to a shared central service model, gaining significant operational benefits through simplification, standardisation and centralisation.

“Our aim was to bring all sites and employees under one centralised solution given the exponential growth of the company in recent years,” said Dave Boulton, Infrastructure Project Manager at Speedy Hire. “The solution we were working to previously was not meeting our needs. Through working with Centralis to implement Citrix Presentation Server coupled with the ability to manage the system remotely from headquarters, our IT infrastructure is now robust and flexible, allowing us to drive the company forward into the future with confidence.”

“The acquisition of Hewden Tools and its assimilation into Speedy Hire was greatly simplified through the use of Citrix technology, enabling rapid rollout of key applications and cutting costs.”

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