Parker looks to optimize desktop startup time with Citrix VDI-in-a-Box
Parker SSD Drives is a division of Parker Hannifin, the world’s leading diversified manufacturer of motion and control technologies and systems with more than $10B in annual sales.
The challenge: Maximize production time
As an industrial manufacturer, Parker SSD sought to maximize production time, with its manufacturing PCs operating 24x7. But when these machines updated, they could take up to eight hours to reboot—and IT couldn’t control when these updates would occur. “Sometimes the machines would update in the middle of a shift, disrupting production,” explains Steve Armstrong, senior support analyst at Parker SSD Drives. “We wanted to minimize unscheduled downtime. Plus, when machines went down and needed repairs, that impacted revenues, so we wanted to reduce the mean time to repair problems. We realized desktop virtualization would address both these issues.”
The results: Citrix VDI-in-a-Box delivers reliability of virtualization—with ease of use
After evaluating alternatives, Parker chose Citrix® VDI-in-a-Box™ for its ease of use, reliable performance, speed and cost-effectiveness. Now, IT tests any patches and updates first and rolls them out to the manufacturing PCs on a schedule that fits the needs of the business. And if any PC develops a problem, IT can fix it in approximately one tenth of the time: staff simply regenerate a pristine desktop from the template. Just as predicted, reliability has improved dramatically—and IT was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to implement this virtual infrastructure. “We’re impressed with the functionality, accessibility and speed—we were up and running within minutes,” says Armstrong. “Citrix VDI-in-a-Box gives us a solution we can easily replicate across our manufacturing sites, as it can be handled by differently trained and skilled IT staff.” Parker plans a second phase of the rollout, focused on Windows 7 migration for users, for summer.
About Citrix
Citrix® VDI-in-a-Box™ is a an all-in-one VDI software appliance that enables Windows® administrators to deliver centrally managed virtual desktops to any user, anytime, on any device – for less than the cost of new PCs. VDI-in-a-Box eliminates over 60 percent of traditional VDI infrastructure – including management servers and shared storage (SANs) – by integrating connection brokering, desktop provisioning, load balancing and user profile management, and leveraging off-the-shelf servers with direct-attached storage. Servers can be connected to form a highly available grid, which scales simply by adding more servers; the grid automatically load balances and manages high availability
About Citrix VDI-in-a-Box
Citrix VDI-in-a-Box is a an all-in-one VDI software appliance that enables Windows® administrators to deliver centrally-managed virtual desktops to any user, anytime, on any device – for less than the cost of new PCs. VDI-in-a-Box eliminates over 60% of traditional VDI infrastructure – including management servers and shared storage (SANs) – by integrating connection brokering, desktop provisioning, load balancing, and user profile management, and leveraging off-the-shelf servers with direct-attached storage. Servers can be connected to form a highly-available grid, which scales simply by adding more servers; the grid automatically load balances and manages high-availability.
©2011 Citrix Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Citrix® and VDI-in-a-Box™ are trademarks or registered trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. and/or one or more of its subsidiaries, and may be registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Microsoft®, Windows®, Windows XP® and Hyper-V® are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.
Key Benefits
- Reduction of unscheduled downtime
- Reduction of mean time to fix problems by 90%
- Reduction of desktop startup time by 20%
- Ease of widespread deployment—IT with varying skill sets can deploy and manage Citrix VDI-in-a-Box
- Quick ROI—one-sixth the cost of alternatives
- Single consolidated UI focused on desktops & users
- Built-in high availability on commodity servers
Desktop Solution Needs
- Reduce unplanned downtime to minimize disruption
- Reduce troubleshooting time
- Optimize desktop startup time
- Simplify administration, even for IT staff with varying skill sets
- Deploy quickly, manage easily and grow on demand
Networking Environment
- Citrix VDI-in-a-Box
- Dell 2800
- Repurposed PCs and various Wyse thin clients