Reference story - Scottish and Southern Energy
Scottish and Southern Energy is one of the UK’s largest utilities services companies in the UK. It is involved in the generation, transmission, distribution and supply of electricity; energy trading; the storage, distribution and supply of gas; electrical and utility contracting and telecoms throughout the UK.
With 300 Citrix servers managed in different farms and builds, coupled with a plethora of applications, Scottish and Southern Energy needed a solution to aid the complicated management of deploying new servers across the company’s 150 sites in the UK. Essentially, Scottish and Southern Energy required a product that would ensure a rapid deployment of new servers and applications.
The Situation
The set-up at Scottish and Southern Energy meant that the management of Citrix servers and applications was very complicated; time consuming and impractical. Scottish and Southern Energy was looking for a product that would be quick to deploy, speed up processes internally and was intuitive, ensuring that they maintained a rapid resolution of products. All of these qualities they found in RES Wisdom.
The Solution
Before deciding upon a single solution, Scottish and Southern Energy explored a number of other suppliers. RES Software and Visionapp were highlighted as the companies whose products were able to meet Scottish and Southern Energy’s requirements for server deployment and application delivery, but the differentiating factor was the ability of RES Wisdom to produce instant comparative reports on the state of the servers and the estate as a whole.
Flexibility was also critical in Scottish and Southern Energy’s choice of provider. The purpose of implementing a software solution was to achieve a uniform set-up across the organization, ensuring the smooth and rapid roll-out of applications. RES Wisdom’s integration with both Citrix and Microsoft SoftGrid (formerly Softricity) aids the flexibility of
projects, modules, queries and tasks.
“It is clear that the RES Software team listens to customers requirements and thanks to the simple framework, is able to tie together a bundle of solutions simply and efficiently.
The Benefits
Scottish and Southern Energy found that through the implementation of RES Wisdom, not only did it benefit from an increase in productivity due to a decrease in the time spent solving problems and activating new applications, but also gained a broader base from which it is able to deploy developments.
The ease of transferring the system from the test laboratory to full scale commercial roll-out was rapid and intuitive. Using the unique RES Wisdom building blocks, 300 servers were updated in 30 minutes. “The real beauty of RES Wisdom is in its simplicity,” said Henrik Magnusson, Citrix Architect, Scottish and Southern Energy. “RES Wisdom doesn’t become an overhead; rather it helps manage and maintain our systems accurately and rapidly.”
“What really differentiates RES Wisdom for Scottish and Southern Energy is the flexibility in the offering, coupled with RES Software’s continuous updating of the product as new functionality is developed. It is clear that the RES Software team listens to customers requirements and thanks to the simple framework, is able to tie together a bundle of solutions simply and efficiently.”
Already consolidated with Citrix, RES Wisdom agility allows Scottish and Southern Energy to change and alter applications and configurations on the fly.
The Future
Going forward, Scottish and Southern Energy aim to continue updating its system as new applications are developed. This will be an easy process as RES Wisdom is regularly updated with the newest versions of applications, as and when they are developed.
Boosted by the success of the initial implementation of RES Wisdom, Scottish and Southern Energy also plan to extend the use of the product to a number of other locations.
The real beauty of RES Wisdom is in its simplicity. RES Wisdom doesn't become an overhead, rather it helps manage and maintain our systems accurately and rapidly.
Henrik Magnusson, Citrix Architect, UK