KT works with desktop virtualization and application access on iPad tablets

The challenge: increase business agility to enhance competitiveness

To respond to rapid changes in the business environment and achieve leadership in the telecommunications market, KT aimed to create a culture that can move work forward through collaboration among employees at any time and from anywhere. At the same time, KT wanted an IT environment that could secure corporate information assets and simplify IT management.

CK Kim, director of the Cloud Business Department, Cloud Business Unit, KT, explained, “Our goal was to increase productivity by enabling smart working and to share individuals’ knowledge and expertise more easily across the organization. Also, we wanted to reduce carbon emissions by establishing a working environment that is not limited by location.”

Implementing a Citrix desktop virtualization solution

To achieve its goals, KT decided to implement desktop virtualization technology and selected Citrix® XenDesktop®, which leads the virtualization market in Korea, after reviewing solutions from several vendors. XenDesktop was implemented in June 2010 at the company’s Seocho Olleh Campus in Seocho-dong, Seoul. Currently, 1,200 office employees are accessing a virtual desktop delivered by XenDesktop.

KT refers to this solution as its “cloud PC.” According to Kim, “Through the introduction of the cloud PC based on Citrix XenDesktop, we are the first Korean communication company to deliver a virtual PC optimized for specific work features.”  Through FlexCast™ technology, XenDesktop can accommodate a variety of user requirements and work scenarios, including hosted VDI to deliver a personalized desktop for office workers, and on-demand streaming to devices without a hard drive.  KT also uses Citrix® XenClient™, the client-side hypervisor that enables virtual desktops to run directly on client devices, to allow users to work productively when they are experiencing difficulty connecting to the Internet. Citrix® HDX™ technology, a key feature of XenDesktop, makes it easy for users to conduct a high-resolution video conference and do high-speed printing.

Flexible working with application access on iPad tablets

After introducing the cloud PC solution to the Seocho office building, KT supplied Apple iPad tablets to about 32,000 employees in other locations. Citrix Receiver™ for iPad allows these workers to access important Windows® applications, documents and other resources over the network. There are currently about 20 applications provided in the application virtualization environment for the iPad, including the company’s intranet portal; human resources system; enterprise resource planning (ERP), product management and quote management solutions; and productivity tools including Microsoft® Office.

Hyun Joo Lee, team leader of KT Cloud Business Team 3, said, “All regular employees – even those who do not receive a virtual desktop – can carry out company work at any time and from anywhere by using Citrix Receiver technology, which provides the ability to view important work in a virtualized environment with security reinforced.”

Cost reduction and simplified IT management

By introducing desktop virtualization, KT has reduced total cost of ownership for office employees by 120 million KRW annually. Part of that cost savings derives from simpler desktop management. XenDesktop enables the IT team to manage the desktop OS, applications and user profiles for virtual desktops as a single image in the datacenter. Policies can be applied uniformly, as well. Previously, software administration such as upgrades and patches took a great deal of time.

Citrix CloudPlatform

Choosing the appropriate cloud technology vendor was critical to the success of KT’s first public cloud offering, ucloud. It was imperative that KT ucloud provide clients with high-performance technology at a fraction of the cost. “We developed a list of requirements our cloud vendor needed to provide, but we also wanted a vendor that had proven results and use cases on which we could base our decision,” stated Suh. “After finding the Citrix CloudPlatform team and learning about its innovative technology, we knew we had found a solution that satisfied everything on our list. The entire team has extensive experience and its technology allows us to bring a cloud service quickly and cost-efficiently to market.”

CloudPlatform’s easy integration and flexibility dramatically decreased ucloud’s time to market as well as allow us to provide customers with overall cost savings,” explained Suh. “CloudPlatform’s flexible yet performance-enhancing architecture allows ucloud to deliver stability, security and convenience that make it more agile and usable at a price that is 40 percent lower than Amazon Web Services.”

In addition to cost benefits, CloudPlatform is also enabling KT ucloud to deliver the performance its customers require. Performance is extremely important in cloud offerings and can lead to the success or demise of a service. Citrix allows KT ucloud to easily scale without affecting performance. In addition, Citrix CloudPlatform gives KT ucloud the ability to monitor and meter usage volumes to give users real-time visibility into how they are using their cloud resources.

Future plans

KT is planning to expand the cloud PC solution to the entire organization in phases. The company will continue to use XenDesktop as the basis of the environment because it has already demonstrated a high level of functionality and efficiency.