Advanced Info Service Plc (AIS) is the leading mobile operator in Thailand. By the end of 2003, the company and its subsidiaries generated more than US$2.4 billion in revenues, and secured more than 13 million mobile phone subscribers. AIS, which has maintained its market leadership through ongoing technology innovation, is supported by a nationwide network of 400 franchise partners called Telewiz branches.

The Challenge: Branches Create IT Management and Application Deployment Problems

AIS services its customers through a network of 400 franchised Telewiz branches distributed across the entire country. More than 1,500 PCs at these branches were running a variety of applications to support sales and after-sales functions such as subscriber registration, billing, payment, promotions and account servicing. This large number of distributed machines, each with a variety of applications locally installed, created a huge burden for the AIS IT team.

“Every time we needed to roll out or upgrade an application, our IT staff spent up to seven days to administer these updates to each of the 1,500 PCs across 400 locations,” said Suphot Punnachaiya, Assistant Vice President – Technical Systems Support, AIS Thailand.

This challenge was compounded by the fact that the 1,500 PCs were running on different operating systems, from Windows® 98 to Windows® XP.

Punnachaiya elaborated that the previous application management tool from Computer Associates was not ideal, as it was unable to resolve numerous data errors that IT staff had to spend considerable time rectifying.

“We were looking for a solution to help simplify IT management, and also enable AIS to retain total control of the client PCs -– the versioning and the way users access the applications,” said Punnachaiya.

Further, access to applications from the Telewiz branches was slow, hampering the ability of customer service personnel to respond efficiently to customer requests.  

“Overall, we were looking to establish an agile and flexible IT architecture to support the rapid growth of subscribers that AIS is targeting,” explained Punnachaiya.

Citrix Access Platform for Application Deployment and Branch Access

After evaluating various technologies, AIS turned to an access infrastructure solution based on Citrix Presentation Server™ running on Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Server. As part of the initial deployment managed by AMR Asia Company Limited, a Silver Citrix® Solution Advisor, AIS delivered mission-critical applications to 500 concurrent users across 400 Telewiz branches via the Citrix solution, hosted on a 40-server farm.

The applications delivered to the Telewiz branches included Siebel Communications 7.0, Geneva Technology 5.0 and a proprietary payment application. From a user perspective, the interface is virtually transparent, with no additional authentication, installation or configuration required for information or application access.

US$1.3 Million Savings in One Year; Deployment Time Slashed

Since deploying Citrix software, Punnachaiya said AIS has slashed application deployment time from seven days to 30 minutes. Further, by installing applications on the Citrix servers instead of the desktops, AIS can ensure that everyone receives access to the same application versions and the latest data. Finally, because Citrix supports any client device or operating system, the company can continue to use older PCs running a variety of operating platforms.

“Because Citrix enables applications to be accessed on basic computing hardware, we were able to save US$1 million in 2004 by extending the lifespan of more than 1,000 PCs,” said Punnachaiya. He elaborated that due to the low bandwidth usage of Citrix technology, AIS was also able to save US$27,000 per month in bandwidth costs during 2004. As an added benefit, AIS’ access infrastructure has provided improved continuity of operations.

Punnachaiya added that AIS chose Citrix access infrastructure because it maximises bandwidth efficiency, enabling the company to provide Telewiz branches with high-performance access to mission-critical applications, even over 64 kbps dial-up connections to the servers.

“Overall, Citrix has helped AIS to enhance our business agility and even improve customer responsiveness by 30 percent,” said Punnachaiya. He explained that by improving remote access to the core business applications, and enhancing the performance of those applications, employees at the Telewiz branches have been able to significantly improve customer response times.

Building a Foundation for Strategic Access

Based on the significant benefits that AIS derived from this initial deployment, it engaged the services of Citrix® Consulting to assist with migration to Citrix Presentation Server™ running on Microsoft® Windows Server™ 2003.

In conjunction with the migration, Citrix Consulting was also enlisted to help AIS extend the Citrix deployment to another 1,000 concurrent users, bringing the total to 1,500 concurrent users.

Said Punnachaiya: “To support an implementation of this scale, and to build a future-proof foundation that could support enhanced application access, Citrix Consulting conducted a full project lifecycle analysis, which involved assessing and redesigning AIS’ system architecture, building and testing the architecture, and finally assisting the AIS team in the rollout of the Citrix solution.”

When the rollout of Citrix solutions is completed, AIS will have a scalable and agile foundation for an access strategy to support the company’s aggressive business growth plans.

“As AIS continues to increase our substantial subscriber base, Citrix will play an instrumental role in helping us rapidly introduce new services, enhance access to mission-critical applications and improve customer responsiveness,” concluded Punnachaiya.

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