Amid the Covid-19 crisis across the world, organizations are bracing to scale resources to ensure that employees have secure and reliable access to the systems and applications they need to do their jobs.
Moreover, such crisis on a global scale demands drastically new ways of thinking and operating — particularly in the way we work — and require companies to quickly put in place flexible business models and workplace technologies to support strategic functions and infrastructure to ensure the safety of employees while maintaining continuity. And IT has to deliver.
In fact, proactive planning and innovative IT initiatives have worked well for Integreon, a global leader in alternative legal, business and research support services for law firms, corporations and professional services firms, to wade through the challenging times. The company credits Citrix VDI solution to enable it maintain business continuity through global lockdowns and to address clients’ apprehensions for work from home scenario.
The company implemented the Citrix solution during the Q2 of 2019 across its locations in India and the US. “The secure work environment and quick ramp-up offered by the Citrix VDI solution enabled us to address the Covid-19 challenges effectively. We were already well-prepared when the crisis restricted the employee movements and forced them to work from home,” shared Sanjeev Jain, CIO, Integreon.
He highlighted that the biggest benefit of the Citrix solution is the ability to have a centralized set up across the facilities with global policies. “It enables us to implement centralized policies for printing, copy-paste, watermarking, profile deletions and more with a single click of the button. It obviously saves the time and money spent on accessing individual desktops and defining policies.”
Further, the solution offers features like data leakage prevention, controlled Internet access, multifactor authentication and session recording. The result is a virtual desktop that behaves just like a regular desktop on which apps have actually been installed and data is stored locally. When the VDI session is terminated, all persistent information—such as files and end-user application customizations—are stored so that the desktop is restored seamlessly at the next logon. “We are using Citrix VDI extensively for our legal process outsourcing and risk and regulatory services. As the data is not stored locally, it keeps the security and data leakage concerns at bay. Moreover, when it comes to performance, Citrix VDI obviously works on a very low bandwidth,” underlined Jain.
Highlighting the challenges faced with the legacy infrastructure, Jain said, “Availability of IT infrastructure 24/7 was a challenge. In addition, remote connectivity and business continuity while working from home was not fully supported by the existing system.”
The Citrix VDI solution enabled the company to address the critical gaps in creating secure working environment, building strong DR and BCP as well as flexible ramp-up capabilities for business growth.
Going through an experience such as the mass work-from-home shift as a result of Covid-19 is opening up the aperture for technology and business leaders about remote working and the future of work. Not only is it a good business continuity measure, but also a strategic tool for attracting the right talent and activating untapped workforces across the globe in the long term.
Smart IT organizations recognize this and are placing technologies like digital workspaces at the core of their business continuity plans, to help manage resources in a dynamic and scalable way that global business environments demand.
