Managing a virtual desktop infrastructure
A U.S.-based full-service provider of consumer and commercial banking with approximately 20,000 employees throughout the South and Midwest sought to ensure flexibility and consistency across its desktop environment. The award-winning company – acknowledged as an ‘exceptional workplace’ - prioritizes maintaining a reliable and highly efficient IT environment, recognizing that a strong technical foundation directly translates to enhanced employee experience and productivity across the organization.
The bank sought to simplify management of its nearly 3,000 persistent machines, which account for roughly 90% of its virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). Primarily utilized in call centers, by IT support teams and developers, persistent machines are preferred for offering greater user control than non-persistent alternatives, allowing for ad hoc application installation and user-specific customization.
Overcoming complexity and error
Delivering persistent machines presented management challenges; the machines had become harder to administer centrally, updates weren’t standardized, and the lack of uniformity made version control across the environment complex and time-consuming. The desktop team had previously relied on a manual, task-based process using Microsoft’s System Center Configuration Manager (SSCM) to run cleanup utilities during Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA) updates. This method required extra oversight and was prone to complexity and error. Its inconsistent 75-80% success rates left a shortfall – of sometimes several hundred machines – that still required individual attention to ensure updates and maintenance were performed correctly.
An automated solution for enhanced flexibility and control
All of this led the team to explore a more efficient, reliable, and automated solution. In mid-2024, they began planning the deployment of the Citrix® VDA Upgrade Service, available with Citrix DaaS™. By using the service, the team could ensure that persistent desktops were kept up to date with the latest features and security enhancements without interfering with the autonomy developers prefer. This approach struck a balance between user flexibility and central IT governance, helping the team efficiently deliver persistent desktops across the environment while staying current with Citrix’s evolving capabilities. The team conducted a silent install—automated across the persistent fleet—thereby avoiding any disruption to end users.
Optimizing cost and operational efficiency
Since switching to the automated VDA Upgrade Service, the team has seen meaningful gains in both cost savings and operational efficiency. The upgrade process is now largely hands-off, allowing them to schedule updates to happen automatically with minimal manual intervention. The team now has the flexibility and choice to upgrade VDA by selecting individual machines or entire catalogs. The VDA Upgrade Service has been particularly notable for its ease of rollout—and its impact; unlike the previous SCCM method, its success rate is close to 100%. Plus, upgrades can now reliably take place without needing recourse to third party software deployment technologies.
Cost efficiencies are realized through streamlined VDA rollouts, eliminating the need for more complex or resource-intensive deployment methods. Additionally, maintaining machines on a consistent VDA version has reduced variability across the environment, which in turn helps lower the volume of help desk calls. Staying current with the latest versions also enables the bank to leverage new features and improvements, leading to potential efficiency gains and a better overall user experience.
