Case Study – Schiavello

Schiavello journeys with Thomas Duryea and Citrix to the virtual interior

International interior construction company Schiavello needed to renew its server fleet in the face of wide-ranging demands on its infrastructure. A number of its construction sites and project management businesses also had mobility requirements.

“We found that as a secondary function our shop floor control system was expanding and we were moving into a lot more just-in-time manufacturing, and to track all of that we required a substantial investment in our infrastructure,” Schiavello infrastructure and support manager Bernie Wansink says.

The Schiavello Group covers every Australian state and international locations such as Japan, Singapore and Dubai. It is involved in a number of commercial and residential market segments including commercial fit-outs, manufacturing, construction, hospital solutions, hospitality and project management. The company had already been using Citrix Presentation Server for app delivery. Schiavello opted to deploy XenServer 5.6 virtualisation two years ago after evaluating its challenges, which included the need to reduce hardware and energy costs.

“Scalability was our No 1 factor, stability was our second factor and moving forward disaster recovery was the third factor as part of our risk mitigation,” Wansink says. Implementation of the solution was quick, stable and allowed centralised deployment of applications, which reduced resource requirements when new versions or patches need to be deployed. Schiavello uses XenApp 6.0 to deliver desktops and published applications to all areas of the business and some external parties. It also uses Client Access gateway for two-part authentication and remote delivery.

The group has about 700 users, with 25 per cent of those mobile or have mobile functionality. “So we are finding in that respect it is an invaluable product to us,” Wansink says. From a business perspective, Schiavello is considerably more agile within the industry and has quicker deployment. “We can set up site offices in 45 minutes, whereas some of our competitors can take up to four weeks.” The reduction in set-up time for projects and the savings in operational costs offer the company a competitive differentiator.

Schiavello has reduced the costs of hardware and cooling. Fans now run at 40 per cent instead of 80 per cent. It has gone from nine racks to three in its main data centre. Schiavello’s staff is able to access the desktops and applications that they need wherever they are. App virtualisation also allows the company to be device-agnostic, with staff able to access their information on any device at any time. “It has allowed us to have scalability and just-in-time scalability,” Wansink says. “It has allowed us to provide mobility to end-users and also now to some of our suppliers and to third parties that we deal with.” Schaivello has also been able to increase the lifespan of its existing desktop fleet. Instead of turning over its PC fleet every three years, it is done every five to seven.

The implementation of Citrix XenServer provided an opportunity to perform a domain migration project bringing 15 independent domains into one manageable environment. “We have brought the whole group now over to one active directory domain, which has improved our management and control of the domain and the service that we can deliver,” Wansink says. The million-dollar-plus project was completed on time and budget. Citrix, in conjunction with integration partner Thomas Duryea, worked with the internal infrastructure support team to ensure the seamless migration from physical to virtual infrastructure.

Schiavello is working on getting a disaster recovery environment up and running as part of its overall business continuity plan. “We are looking at the moment at increasing our SAN capacity behind it,” he says. Schiavello recently migrated its accounts department and administration functions to Citrix platforms and is in the process of moving over the remainder of its manufacturing facilities. The company plans to expand the role of Client Access Gateway as part of its disaster plan, which allows employees to be set up at home. Schiavello is planning to use the software for third parties paired with two-factor authentication.

As published in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/it-business/journey-to-the-virtual-interior/story-e6frganx-1226188091594 on 08/11/2011