CZ Zorgverzekeraar highly values the work-life balance for employees

CZ is one of the largest non-profit health care Insurance organizations in the Netherlands. More than 3,000 employees service over 3.3 million insured. CZ has offices in Tilburg, Goes, Breda, Sittard and Den Haag, 18 service offices and 10 mobile offices. CZ aims at high quality and a fast, personal approach with clear and reliable services for an affordably priced premium with wide coverage. Recently, CZ acquired the care divisions of Delta Lloyd and Ohra.

The challenge – Create a virtual desktop

Many years ago, CZ selected Citrix® XenApp™ as a solution for application delivery. By centralizing IT on a large XenApp farm and standardizing applications, administration of applications became very easy. Even administering complex client-server applications—which frequently required new versions or updates—became very efficient.

“We do not automatically replace desktops after three years, but only when they are technically outdated. So we mostly had Windows® XP desktops replaced by thin clients running virtualized applications on XenApp,” said Han Tanis, director, ICT & Document processing at CZ. “Maintaining and updating the operating system  and the anti-virus software, for example, took too much time and we needed to eliminate the PCs and other unnecessary infrastructure. In addition, we were looking for a way to simplify the desktop for all employees in the offices, service offices and at home  by introducing a fully virtualized desktop environment.”

Implementing a Citrix solution for desktop virtualization

The 150 employee IT staff at CZ has installed the new environment and Sylis Nederland BV, a Gold Citrix Solution Advisor, supported with the streamlining of the infrastructure. To be ready for the virtual future that already started at CZ, the environment was upgraded to Windows Server™ 2008 and the newest version of XenApp. For advanced monitoring, CZ added Citrix® Edgesight™, a component of Citrix® XenApp™, Platinum Edition. For additional security when working from home, the infrastructure was enhanced with two high availability Citrix® Access Gateway™ for two-way authentication.
 
During an 18 month period, 90 percent of all old PCs were gradually replaced by 3,030 Wyse thin clients.  RES PowerFuse is added on the XenApp farm for workspace management. Instead of using published applications, the employees now use a virtualized desktop published on XenApp and experience a true PC experience. Over 150 applications are published with XenApp over LAN and WAN connections to almost any employee: in offices on the LAN, remote using the WAN, from home using broadband and on the road using wireless UMTS.

The ultimate virtual workplace

“The Citrix solution helps us reduce the operational cost for desktop administration and improve the efficiency of the IT department. Replacing old PCs with thin clients finalizes the architecture,” continued Tanis. “There is no need for maintaining operating systems on desktops. This saves us about six months compared to the situation with old PCs. The thin client is no longer an IT device but we look at it as facility. The facility management department has thin client in stock, and replaces them when they break.”

At first, employees were skeptical about thin clients, but now they are very satisfied because they experience better performance and improved availability first hand. Even logging on in the Citrix environment is much faster than before using old PCs. In addition, they have access to all the newest applications from the company desktop as well as from home.

Thin clients also save energy and are sustainable. “When we compare the environment with old PCs with the new infrastructure using thin clients, we save as much energy that would be used by 50 lease cars driving 30,000 kilometer per year.”

Working from home increases efficiency and productivity

Working from home is very important for the operational processes at CZ. CZ is very in favor of teleworking and has 150 employees that work fulltime from home. “Although it is difficult to quantify, we are convinced that working from home is very efficient and that it substantially increases productivity,” Tanis added. “These employees have the same desktop at home as we use on our company network. They work with thin client and published virtualized desktop using a secure connection to the centralized XenApp infrastructure in our datacenter. This is very secure because thin clients never contain any data and do not need anti-virus software.” These permanent remote workers log on using smartcards and the Access Gateway and have exactly the same desktop as employees on the local network. CZ also provides the broadband connection at home and a VoIP phone that is completely integrated with the local PABX system after the connection has been established. Calling customers do not notice that they are speaking to an employee who is working from home. The virtual workplace is located logically in the CZ network.

In addition to fulltime home workers, CZ allows about 1,500 employees to work at home on an ad-hoc basis when it is useful. These employees use the CZ Remote Access Portal (RAP) that is based on web interface, a component of XenApp. They log on using Access Gateway and the integrated SMS authentication. The employees are very positive about teleworking. It helps them find a better work/life balance and enables them to match working hours with low or high workload. Management supports this way of working, valuing results over presence.

The virtual desktop becomes reality

Only a small part of the desktops are currently PCs, because they run complex applications or are used by employees who need a lot of freedom, such a those who may need to  use DVDs. ”During 2010, we expect to replace the remaining PCs with thin clients. We plan to implement Citrix® XenDesktop™ to offer virtualized desktops from the datacenter to this type of usage scenarios. We also see another use of the virtual desktop with XenDesktop at home, where employees need more freedom, for example to install drivers. Citrix XenApp and Citrix XenDesktop work together to enable complete desktop virtualization on desktops, mobile offices and smartphones.”