Citrix Managed Services

Managing Citrix XenApp or XenDesktop environments is a skilled and time-consuming task.  The Centralis Citrix Managed Service offers a proven, fixed price option used by customers in the public & private sectors throughout the UK. 

The Citrix Managed Service from Centralis provides a simple, cost-effective way to ensure that a Citrix XenApp or XenDesktop environment is tuned and maintained to best practice. 

Centralis currently manages Citrix farms and desktops for some of the UK's leading private and public sector organisations.  Supporting many thousands of concurrent users, these environments benefit from pro-active maintenance which includes automated management tools, daily checks, monthly reporting and detailed annual health checks / quality assurance reviews. 

In addition Centralis supplies a copy of the unique, market-leading Citrix Ready farm management tool "Harvester" for the duration of every contract, providing excellent reporting and helping to ensure standardisation across the farm.

Centralis prices are kept competitive by combining highly experienced administration staff with bespoke in-house developed farm management tools.  The result is an excellent level of service at a cost which is typically 50% less than that of a fully expensed in-house team.

Citrix Managed Service

The Citrix Managed Service from Centralis has the following features & benefits:

	" We now have the added confidence that the Citrix environment is maintained by Centralis as a managed service, backed by the prompt response from their helpdesk. "
	Nick Atkins, Head of IT&T, University Of The Arts London

• Best of Breed - reduce risk with the only UK managed service backed by Citrix Platinum & Citrix Ready accreditations
• Proven Track Record - Centralis offers more than twelve years history with major public sector and Times Top 100 customers
• Attention to Detail - Receive comprehensive reports including monthly application & license usage and detailed annual health-check
• Value for Money - The service includes daily pro-active maintenance, scheduled patches, updates and service packs, unlimited technical support and call escalation to consultancy / vendor at no extra cost
• Quality Standards - All staff are Citrix certified, and the managed service is backed by ISO9000 standard procedures and Investors in People certification
• SLAs and KPIs - All calls tracked against SLA targets, with "same day close" target on priority calls 
• Enterprise Toolset - Centralis unique farm management software (as used by some of the world's largest farms) included free of charge

The Centralis Managed Service is designed to ensure the highest quality and performance of Citrix environments and to optimise the quality of service delivered to end-users.  Please Contact Us to find out more....

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Managed Service Options

Managed Services can be combined with additional options:

1. Upgrades
   Customers can add application deployment services and/or upgrades to Citrix and Microsoft in a multi-year contract, smoothing the costs over the period.
2. Framework Days
   Include an agreed number of call-off days within a services agreement and benefit from improved daily rates and reduced lead times.
3. Hosting
   Combine the managed service with external hosting through Centralis' business partners for business continuity, flexibility or cost reduction purposes.
4. Microsoft Managed Infrastructure Service
   Extend the scope of the managed service to include Exchange, Domain Controller, IIS, SQL and other infrastructure elements.
5. 24 x 7 x 365 Support
   Place priority calls out of hours with our extended cover

To discuss your Managed Service options please Contact Us and we will be happy to provide further details and costs.

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Why Choose a Managed Service?

A Managed Service from Centralis can offer a number of advantages over in-house teams:

1. Experience
   The Centralis Service Desk team manages a wide range of Citrix environments and works closely with the award-winning Centralis consultancy team on best practice, methodologies and new technologies.

   	" Centralis have delivered a managed desktop for Centrica's mobile workers which has reduced the return to base rate for laptop PCs by two thirds."
   	Peter Christie, Head of Mobile Technology, Centrica plc

2. Training
   Centralis ensures that the knowledge of every member of the team is kept up to date through professional training courses and certification - which can be costly and increase the risk of staff turnover for customer teams.
3. Focus
   Staff assigned to managing Citrix environments need to have this as the principal focus of their role. It is very easy for customer's staff to be assigned to other projects which have higher short-term priority.
4. Staff Retention
   Turnover of technical staff can be costly and very disruptive.  Centralis maintain core capabilities by assigning lead consultants to managed service customers and by maintaining detailed customer specific procedures, logs and documentation.
5. Make Changes with Confidence
   XenApp and XenDesktop environments demand the highest quality change procedures and standards.  Centralis can work with existing procedures or simply follow best practice to minimise any negative impact of changes on end-users.
6. Cost
   Centralis typically offers savings of 50% against the fully expensed annual internal cost (including salaries, overheads, training, 20% p.a. staff turnover & 3rd party Citrix support contract), of Citrix systems management, which is between £3,000 (enterprise solutions) and £8,000 (SME) per server¹.

Conclusion

A Managed Services contract from Centralis brings certainty of performance, reliability and cost.  The performance of the service and the environment is clearly demonstrated and proven by monthly reports of performance against service targets, backed up by a detailed annual health-check included in the cost.

By purchasing a managed service from Centralis your system is managed to the highest standard and kept updated by a highly experienced and fully trained service desk, whose focus is purely on providing quality of service to Centralis customers.  Contact Us to discuss how a Managed Service could benefit your organisation.

1 Figures are based on a typical salary for a systems administrator of £33,000 weighted by 50% for standard overheads plus 20% for specialist training and recruitment costs.

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