Reference story - Indaver
Indaver is an integrated service provider of high-quality waste management services. Indaver covers the entire waste management value chain, ranging from consulting and on-site management, over collection, pre-treatment, re-use, recycling and recovery to final disposal. Indaver employs over 700 people and operates several transfer stations, as well as recycling and composting facilities, physico-chemical treatment plants, incinerators and landfill sites. In 2006 Indaver managed 1,878,000 tonnes of waste.
The IT infrastructure, at the main facilities in Flanders, consists of Dell servers, laptops, desktops and switches. The company uses SAP for its enterprise resource planning, WebFocus and many other applications like Microsoft Office, IBM’s Domino server and Lotus Notes. Indaver is rapidly virtualising most of their servers using VMware’s ESX server.
The Challenge
When Indaver started out using Citrix, at the turn of the century, it quickly found it needed extra tools to secure the environment. “Staffers were able to install all kinds of junk software, making an unmanageable mess of our servers”, describes Filip Peeters, Head of IT Operations. “It made the entire IT infrastructure unstable and something had to be done. Also performance was a problem. When a user’s application took 100% of a server’s CPU, everybody working on that server was impacted. Users complained that applications were slow and sometimes not responding. Because we didn’t want to leave the Server Based Computing model, we tried some extra software to make our systems more stable, secure and perform better. RES PowerFuse was one of the solutions we tried, and it cleared the muddle.”
As Indaver’s business grew in size, scope and number of employees, we wanted to have a standard working environment, transparent for the user. Whenever, wherever a user logs on, he must get the same working environment and tools. Also the IT department needed betters tools to control and organise the configuration of desktops. “We wanted to offer a single desktop with just the applications that are meant for the specific user. Users should furthermore be unable to install their own screen savers and software they received from colleagues or friends.”
The Solution
These were the two main IT management problems that RES PowerFuse was successfully called to tackle. Over the last five years, RES PowerFuse solved several other issues that were plaguing the fast growing Indaver IT environment, says Wim Boni, Systems Administrator. “We found RES PowerFuse helped us manage the many scripts that are common in a Citrix environment. Instead of having a server loaded with scripts for printers, scripts for network drives and scripts for users and files, we now have one central mechanism that is easy to maintain.” RES PowerFuse is now also used to ensure CPU performance. Peeters: “It is no longer possible for a single user or a single program to crash an entire server.”
The Benefits
To begin with, says Boni, RES Software support is fantastic. “Early on we had a number of technical issues. These were resolved very quickly by the RES Software developers. We had direct access to them, and they were able to help even if it meant changing something in the heart of the software. At RES Software, a client is never a number, they really try to help.”
Boni also compliments RES PowerFuse’s smooth upgrades. “We have not had a single problem during upgrades”. In fact, while on the phone with a RES Software developer, I have once upgraded a live system without any of our users noticing. This really proves the product is built well.
Compare that with other applications, where you get the first error when you start the install.” As for the delivered functionality, Indaver’s Head of IT Operations is very pleased with the way RES PowerFuse unified the desktops. “All employees have the same basic desktop, users have only those applications, rights and configuration settings that we allow them.” The same goes for printer and network drives, Peeters says. “Using RES PowerFuse is really handy. Just look at the simplicity of the log on and log off scripts, taking users to the right directory, printers and files.”
The IT department now is able to control even the Microsoft Windows® Registry. There are many applications that are really difficult to install in a Citrix environment, explains Boni. Using RES PowerFuse, Indaver’s IT department is able to manipulate the registry settings and other configuration details, so that they actually do work. “This enables us to centralise, for example, management of Office templates and work group templates. We do not have to keep track of these templates on both RES PowerFuse and Microsoft Active Directory, we just use RES PowerFuse. The same goes for specialised applications.”
RES PowerFuse makes IT administration almost a light task, describes Peeters. “We are no longer surprised by an obscure script put on some server and made by an IT administrator that no longer works for the company. I should not say it, but it has become ‘admin for dummies’.”
All things considered, Peeters says, RES PowerFuse has made the complex IT infrastructure very stable. “Prior to RES PowerFuse, we were used to have servers crashes daily. Thanks to RES PowerFuse we now have a stable, performing and secure environment.
Peeters finds it difficult to pin down how much RES PowerFuse helps to save costs. “A compelling argument is that RES PowerFuse enabled the IT department to cope with Indaver’s rapidly expanding IT environment without the need of extra staff even though the company has doubled in size over the last five years."
At RES Software, a client is never a number, they really help.
Wim Boni, System Administrator, Belgium