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In the face of natural disasters, the City of Corona builds business continuity with Citrix

Industry: Public Sector |  Solution: Business continuity

City of Corona

In the face of natural disasters, the City of Corona builds business continuity with Citrix

The City of Corona is a local authority 45 miles southwest of Los Angeles. Its 168,000 population is contained within just 39 square miles.

Corona sits on the Elsinore Fault Zone near the San Andreas Fault line, and it is in wildfire territory. The city, which manages police and fire services, has been affected by severe wildfires over the past two years, with citizens evacuated and homes destroyed.

168,000
Population

39.2
Square miles

42,000
Jobs within City of Corona

Business challenge

“From a disaster recovery perspective, we’d like our employees to work from anywhere,” says Deputy CIO Kyle Edgeworth. “In the event of an emergency, we need to be agile. We need access to our systems and our data."

With public sector operating budgets acting as a key factor, the city requires the flexibility to scale cloud services up or down as required and to wring maximum value from its resources. Further, with a relatively small IT team, it is imperative that they efficiently align resources around the needs of the business. “We want to be a data-driven city. We want to add new services. Citrix allows us to maximize our IT investments,” says Edgeworth.

City Manager, Darrell Talbert, adds: “The City’s goal to be data-driven is no longer a choice but a necessity for efficient and sustainable government.”

“Ultimately, this kind of project should be judged a success if it has improved outcomes for citizens,” continues Edgeworth. “For instance, with more effective field teams, could we be quicker to clean up graffiti? Or could we improve computer services in libraries with a clean VDI environment? Could we create a network of local kiosks for citizens to manage their accounts? All of this becomes possible.”

The solution

These motives are driving the city’s cloud-first IT strategy. It began using Microsoft Azure in February 2017 and also committed to Office 365. “Those were our first steps,” says Edgeworth. “The future is to have the whole city on Citrix VDI.”

This will do more than disaster-proof the city’s services, Edgeworth explains. By deploying Citrix Workspace, Corona will be more effective in the way it delivers services, the IT team can be quicker to support new initiatives, and it will simplify collaboration across different departments.

The benefits to the IT team are equally transformative. The IT team will transform from a reactive, fixer of problems to a business enabler.

“It will enable us to examine all our processes,” says Edgeworth. “ROI is important to a local government, but it is not the only driver. Being able to free up the time of our employees will deliver other, more long-term benefits.”

Edgeworth himself was evacuated from his home for a week in 2018, with wildfires passing less than a mile from his house: “I managed to access my work remotely, but I could see the value Citrix Workspace will have for all our employees. We want to get to a stage where employees understand that everything they need to carry out their work can be accessed through Citrix.”

Initially, Edgeworth had considered other cloud solution vendors, but there was limited availability in the government cloud. “We looked at other cloud products versus Citrix Workspace, but Citrix was leaps and bounds ahead. Citrix was already proving themselves in the government space and had a lot of features that weren’t available by other vendors.”

Results

Solid business continuity

The shift to a cloud-first strategy improves business agility, staff productivity, and establishes a platform for business continuity. It will be better at responding to events, and there is less chance of a disruption to services.

Seamless user experience

Edgeworth says his priority is ensuring the cloud works for employees. “We want the experience to be seamless for the city’s employees. We’ve already noticed workflows changing and people collaborating better.”

Cost savings

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service helped City of Corona to reduce hardware expenditure by 72% and cloud costs by 50%. “If we can reduce our expenses, but at the same time provide a better experience to our citizens, then it’s a win for everyone,” says Edgeworth. 

Citrix is an investment into Corona’s future and into the vision of putting IT at the forefront of empowering innovation in the organization. Citrix allows us to focus less on desktop infrastructure and more on what is truly important; our people.

Kyle Edgeworth
Deputy CIO
City of Corona

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About the City of Corona

The City of Corona is located approximately 45 miles southeast of Los Angeles in western Riverside County. The City limits encompass 39.2 square miles and the population is over 168,000. Corona's industrial base has played an important role in the growth of the City and its employee base. There are more than 42,000 jobs within the city of Corona and there is a workforce of more than 84,000. Corona has more than 34 million square feet of industrial space and more than 3 million square feet of office space existing, under construction, or planned.

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We want to be a data-driven city. We want to add new services. Citrix Workspace allows us to maximize our IT investments.
Kyle Edgeworth
Deputy CIO
City of Corona

Industry

  • Public Sector

Key Benefit

  • Strengthened business continuity measures
  • Improved business agility
  • Limited IT resources aligned to business needs
  • Cost savings
  • Automated processes
  • Better end user experience

Citrix Product