With almost 44,000 inhabitants, Berkelland is the third largest municipality in the Achterhoek region in the Netherlands. The municipality strives to provide residents, business owners and guests with the best possible services. The 400 employees are proud of the work they do supporting the entire community via their modern workspace.
The Challenge
The IT environment of the municipality of Berkelland consisted of a Citrix environment with thin clients. These needed to be replaced to deliver a remote hybrid work environment for all employees. The goal was to consolidate and reduce the complexity of managing various IT resources such as the Citrix environment, SaaS applications and locally installed apps.
The modern workplace vision for the municipality had already been written out by a former employee. The plan called for centralized application delivery and management to increase efficiency. This would save a lot of time by reducing application deployment, updating, and patching complexity.
The current legacy Citrix XenApp server architecture would prove to be a challenge in migrating to the new modern workspace. According to Berkelland Municipality ICT Manager Nenad Vasiljevic, they needed to find a solution to replace the Citrix architecture and seamlessly migrate to the modern workspace they envisioned:
“Before the corona pandemic, we were already looking for a cloud solution replacement for Citrix because we wanted to provide laptops to our end users. The IT infrastructure needed to be as simple as possible with transparent access to the applications they needed, regardless of the device.
Finding the Path to the Modern Workspace
After comparing several provider solutions, Municipality Berkelland chose Application Workspace (formerly Liquit Workspace) in early 2020. A one-month Proof of Concept in their real-world environment was followed by a speedy implementation and transition due to the Pandemic. With the solution going live in June of 2023, Nenad reflected on the process and why Application Workspace was the right choice:
“At the time of the first demo in late 2018 early 2019, there were not that many references within the government, so you go by your gut. Application Workspace was completely new for us, but it proved to offer the setup and rollout convenience we needed. It also offered the integration flexibility we needed to go in all directions and link with the Citrix environment. End users don’t care how that happens since they just click on an icon to start. IT determines what happens next in terms of what software or intelligence is behind the icon. “
“The result is a slick and ‘future proof’ workspace infrastructure, capable of linking and integrating existing systems. With Application Workspace, you can pick up and build things very quickly with no issue being too difficult, and that is exactly what you want as an IT person. We haven’t run into a problem that couldn’t be solved, such as how to use an application in the office or at home. There are certain applications for a government that you can only use in the office. Those have specific access limitations based on device and location. This solution makes it much easier to deal with than our previous system when it comes to access rules.”
According to Nenad, 95% of the software applications built for Citrix have now been migrated. He provided some deeper insights into the process and the outcomes:
“The migration process was a challenge, but the word we’re getting back from the organization is very positive. That is because Application Workspace offers a transparent user interface based on each user’s needs. As a result, people don’t have to worry about the start menu or a particular structure. You can see everything in the portal, which is a big plus for the user.
For us IT people, it means far fewer management tasks than with a Citrix environment, which is a win-win situation for administrators and for users. The platform offers a lot of flexibility and possibilities with a solution for every issue, which is a big plus for us. We regularly find ourselves saying ‘Super that they thought of that too.’
The Solution
Application Workspace allowed the Citrix server park to be downsized. There is now a modern workspace with Intune and Autopilot for deploying Windows Devices that enables improved security and compliance. The Release & Patch Management module enables more advanced application management and context-based deployment, access, and automatic updating.
The platform also provides access to the Citrix StoreFront connector to easily package apps for the Citrix environment in Application Workspace. The add on Access Manager also provides for Single-Sign-On so users log in only once to access multiple Citrix published apps and desktops.
The Results
Municipality end users now have flexible and modern access to all applications and settings based on their individual context and needs. This has increased user satisfaction and reduced management issues. Application updates on laptops are now handled automatically while user reinstalls are fast and easy, saving a lot of time for SysAdmins.
Nenad explained how this modern workspace environment has positively impacted the municipality through cost and time savings:
“We saved on Citrix licenses on the one hand and hardware on the other. Because we purchased Application Workspace as a service provided by our integrator, we also have far fewer management tasks. We still use a few specific legacy municipal applications along with some Centric Software applications. The municipality will take another look at how we can migrate these apps using the Smart Icon technology to implement another application virtualization environment.”
“Application Workspace offers many advantages in terms of costs and management while also putting user experience and satisfaction first, which is our primary goal.”
The municipality is continuing to reduce and consolidate the Citrix XenApp servers. The goal is to completely phase them out and have all remaining applications migrated to the new environment by Oct. 1 of 2024. The municipality plans to integrate Application Workspace into the municipal SharePoint site before the summer break of 2024 to allow applications to be launched from SharePoint. Nenad explained how this has affected TCO in terms of present and future hardware reductions:
“This migration reduced TCO by eliminating the Citrix XenApp server hardware and software. While the Application Workspace platform brings its own cost, it has been offset by a 30% savings in licensing fees and management costs. That doesn’t include the more intangible savings in convenience and productivity for end users along with time savings for IT administrators. We’re continuing to explore the many endpoint and application management possibilities of Recast as we adopt a zero-trust policy in the coming year.”