Bath & North East Somerset Council saving almost £4m a year with Citrix VDI

Flexible working saving power and office space

Bath & North East Somerset Council has rolled out Citrix XenDesktop and XenApp VDI technologies in a deployment that it estimates will save it £4m a year on office space and power.

Working with Citrix advisers at Cetus, the council's IT department replaced Windows XP with Windows 7, putting in Citrix XenDesktop, XenApp and Microsoft Application Virtualisation, virtualising "a significant majority" of council applications.

Installing IGEL thin clients across its various offices and using NetScaler Unified Gateway for secure delivery and remote access, the council's aim was for complete virtual desktop and application access for end users outside the office connecting from home PCs, tablets or smartphones.

The thin clients themselves cost £200 each to purchase, about half th cost of "traditional solutions", according to the council.

Since the completion of the deployment, more than 1,500 of the council's 2,500 end users have signed up to work remotely on a regular basis, leading to a projected annual office energy saving of £250,000.

The rollout has also enabled the council to close "seven major offices", reducing floor space by 40 per cent and saving £3.5m a year in one fell swoop.

Leighton Ballard, applications and digital capabilities manager at Bath & North East Somerset council, said staff can now work in a much more flexible way.

"Previously, we had a situation where people were largely tied to particular desks. We've now got an environment where anybody can sit down at any desk and have access to all their applications and all of their data," said Ballard.

"That's a massive change from where we were before. The Citrix solution has given us truly flexible working."

Sue Green, group manager for public protection and health improvement at the council, said her department has seen significant benefits from the Citrix deployment.

"Many of our staff are out of the office doing inspections for much of the time, and this technology has enabled them to work with complete flexibility. They can start on site, in an office or from home and have all the documentation available. This makes for a far more effective use of time."