Parmalat Australia Ltd (incorporating Pauls Limited) is a subsidiary of the Italian headquartered global dairy company, Parmalat Finanziara SpA. In Australia, Parmalat is one of the major milk producers with 22 percent of the market and brands including Pauls and PhysiCAL. The company has over 1,600 employees based at factories and sales offices around the country.

The Challenge: Managing a Growing Suite of Applications

Citrix technology had been running successfully at Parmalat since mid-2000, and by 2002 Parmalat had upgraded to Citrix® MetaFrame XP™ Presentation Server, Feature Release 1 for the improved and enhanced administration functions. The company was using Citrix software in conjunction with Microsoft® Windows NT® 4.0, Terminal Services Edition. As its systems grew, Parmalat looked to the latest releases of the products to optimise its access infrastructure environment.

“By 2002 we had over 50 applications running, and we really needed the enhancements of Citrix MetaFrame XP Presentation Server, Enterprise Edition, Feature Release 3 to give us more granular control of our environment,” commented Guy Stokker, Manager IT Technical, Parmalat Australia. “We had also pushed the limits of Microsoft Windows NT with the number of applications we had running. We knew it was time to look at an updated and combined solution from Citrix and Microsoft.”

Implementing a Citrix Solution for Improved Manageability

In September 2002, Parmalat was accepted into the Microsoft Rapid Adoption Program Pilot for Windows Server™ 2003. The implementation of Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Server software with Microsoft Windows Server 2003 was handled internally by Parmalat with the assistance of an external consultant.

Parmalat now has over 70 applications running, including SAP 6.20 and Microsoft Office XP, as well as a number of dairy industry-specific applications. The company currently deploys 700 clients, with 530 concurrent users accessing the server farm during peak periods.

Secure Access Infrastructure Available Around the Clock

“Windows Server 2003 provides a very solid platform for MetaFrame Presentation Server, and it allows us to enhance our Citrix access infrastructure,” commented Stokker. Parmalat has seen a number of benefits from its combined Citrix and Microsoft solution, including enhanced functionality, improved system management and cost savings.

“The latest release of MetaFrame Presentation Server offers a plethora of new features required for the environment at Parmalat. With over 70 applications running at present, we require the solid management facilities that MetaFrame Presentation Server offers. For example, changes to the Citrix management console enable us to customise our Citrix client session policies by user or work group instead of on a global basis,“ explained Stokker.

“Enhancements to secure gateway in the latest MetaFrame Presentation Server release enable secure connectivity for users via the Internet without the requirement for a Virtual Private Network (VPN),” continued Stokker.  “This benefit is great for Parmalat, because it removes the cost and configuration requirements of a traditional VPN. As a result, we have been able to provide an access infrastructure for company information, applications, intranets and external Web sites that is secure and available to Parmalat employees around the clock.”

“Using MetaFrame Presentation Server means we’re able to bring in any new application very quickly without concerning ourselves about client-side performance,” Stokker said.

“Overall, as a result of implementing Citrix technology, Parmalat has been able to cut associated hardware purchasing costs by around 57 percent, and we have realised significant savings in administration costs,” concluded Stokker.

Future Plans

Parmalat is now looking to review additional Citrix solutions to assess their applicability for Parmalat’s computing environment. In particular, the company is examining Citrix MetaFrame Secure Access Manager, Citrix MetaFrame Conferencing Manager and Citrix MetaFrame Password Manager.

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