Gennep is a municipality in the northern part of Limburg with approximately 18,000 residents. The municipality has about 240 workstation accounts. In consultation with their IT partner Eshgro, the municipality developed a cloud strategy. Central to this strategy was the desire to use the same workplace anywhere and anytime, with the ability to efficiently and faster roll out and update devices. Recast Software, with its combination of Application Workspace and Release & Patch Management, offered the best solution.
Application Workspace instead of Citrix and Ivanti
Roel Janssen, Technical Information Advisor, and Gerrie Gossens, Systems Administrator at the Municipality of Gennep, explain: “There were three reasons for replacing the IT infrastructure: the workplace equipment itself needed replacement, thin clients and monitors were at least 7 years old. The Citrix server environment could no longer fully support Microsoft Teams after five years. And lastly, information security could no longer be guaranteed in the old environment.”
The municipality wanted to transition to a “modern workplace concept” and provide each end user with their own device so they could work and collaborate anywhere in the same, familiar environment. Eshgro, based in Weert, has been the IT partner of the municipality for 20 years. They were asked to come up with a solution for the issues outlined above.
The same budget, more reliability, security, and stability
On October 2, 2024, the “Modern Workplace” project was completed and the final sign-off was given. New workstations with Application Workspace, Intune, and Fortigate VPN were rolled out for all users. “What struck me the most was the seamless deployment of workstations to users. Our partner Eshgro recommended Application Workspace – before it was taken over by Recast, Liquit Workspace – for the rollout of the modern workplace. Recast specialists came in to explain what the products are, what they do, and gave a demo, which spoke for itself. Then, a group of key-users worked with the modern workplace, and the final choice was made for the proposed solution. We work with a test pool within the municipality. If those involved agree, a new application or update of an existing application is rolled out to everyone. This is also advantageous from a security perspective.”
The combination of Recast and Microsoft enables employees to use the same device both in the office and at home. They can securely log into the company network with a VPN connection managed by Eshgro. Users have been trained on how to use Application Workspace itself and log in on their new laptops. They now have more capabilities, are freer in usage, and have access to the same workplace anytime and anywhere. Additionally, management is much clearer, and updating has become very easy and more efficient.
“Immediately after implementation, the Citrix environment was phased out. This allowed us to save on Citrix license costs as well as Ivanti Workspace Control licenses, as they were used together. With Ivanti Workspace Control’s announced End-of-Life (EOL), this replacement is even more valuable. All the underlying hardware was about five years old, and there was no need for investment in renewing it. We did not spend more on the new solution, but we gained higher reliability, more Microsoft licenses, and a stable and especially secure work environment. Everything has been moved to the cloud, and everyone now has the same laptop and standard workplace. We did this project together with Eshgro and are very pleased with the engineers who helped.”