{"id":1048,"date":"2017-03-02T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-02T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/inswwdev.azurewebsites.net\/au\/insights\/uncategorized\/vdi-vision-becomes-a-reality-at-equity-bank\/"},"modified":"2017-03-02T01:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-03-02T01:00:00","slug":"vdi-vision-becomes-a-reality-at-equity-bank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/us\/insights\/geek-speak\/modern-workplace\/vdi-vision-becomes-a-reality-at-equity-bank\/","title":{"rendered":"VDI Vision Becomes a Reality at Equity Bank"},"content":{"rendered":"

Equity Bank is entrepreneurial at heart. Recognizing the value proposition of a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), the bank went in search of a tool that would enable it to turn this vision into a reality. The team found the solution in FSLogix. The VDI solution eliminates many of the problems the bank had with its Citrix XenApp environment while enabling it to continue to scale through acquisitions and organic growth without any hindrance from its desktop environment.<\/p>\n

Doing big things is at the heart of Equity Bank. It was a guiding principle when Chairman and CEO Brad Elliott acquired the bank\u2019s first branch in Andover, Kansas, with $30 million in the capital in 2002. It is evident in how the bank treats its employees and serves the local communities in which it operates through its \u201cI CARE!\u201d company values. It is embodied in the bank\u2019s innovative \u201cNapkin Stories\u201d that showcase entrepreneurs, including bank employees and entrepreneurial customers by telling their stories of success.<\/p>\n

VDI FROM DAY ONE<\/h3>\n

This same entrepreneurial approach also extends to how Equity Bank is run. It was top of mind when Tyler Miranda joined the bank five years ago managing the bank\u2019s growing inventory of desktop and laptop systems.<\/p>\n

Recognising the bank\u2019s rapid growth trajectory and how this would continue to introduce increasing complexity to its desktop infrastructure, Miranda, assistant vice president\u2013IT systems administration, had migration to a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) as his top objective from day one. \u201cVDI is something I\u2019ve wanted to do since the day I stepped foot in the bank,\u201d Mirada describes. \u201cMoving 150 different applications over to a single image simply wasn\u2019t within the realm of possibility until we found and implemented FSLogix.\u201d<\/p>\n

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VDI is something that I\u2019ve wanted to do since the day I stepped foot in the bank. But moving 150 different applications over to a single image simply wasn\u2019t within the realm of possibility, that is, until we found and implemented FSLogix.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Tyler Miranda, Assistant VP IT Systems Administration<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

CHALLENGES OF VIRTUAL APPLICATION DELIVERY PLATFORM<\/h3>\n

But Miranda was not to be thwarted in turning his vision a reality. The desktop environment Miranda inherited consisted of Windows-based desktops. When Equity Bank started to upgrade those systems to Windows 7, Miranda concluded that an architectural change was required. \u201cWe were constantly updating and patching the systems, and this
complexity was only going to increase,\u201d Miranda says. \u201cFor example, we typically undertake one acquisition annually, expanding our inventory of desktops as well as number of applications.\u201d<\/p>\n

In early 2015, Miranda and Equity Bank\u2019s IT team embarked on an initiative to migrate a portion of the desktop population over to IGEL Thin Clients running the Linux operating system. Other users remain on desk- tops, while most executives are allocated laptops and tablets. Miranda explains the rationale behind the decision to manage all the bank\u2019s applications from a single image: \u201cWe\u2019re able to continue to grow through acquisitions by simplifying how we manage our data center and more- over moving distributed systems and applications into the data center.\u201d<\/p>\n

But a move to a VDI environment was still not possible. Miranda ex- plains: \u201cMany of our 150 applications are used by one or two employees. Our security policies mandate that application access be restricted to only those employees who are authorized users. Without FSLogix, there simply isn\u2019t a way to prevent all users from seeing and accessing all of the applications residing within the consolidated image.\u201d<\/p>\n

One alternative would have been to create multiple images containing applications authorized per groups of users, but this was completely infeasible. \u201cWe have a total of five IT staff,\u201d Miranda states. \u201cWe simply don\u2019t have the resources to manage more than one unified application image. With XenApp only, we frequently had to tell departments and employees \u2018no\u2019 when they requested that we add new applications.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Whenever someone would double click on a .PSD file, this would result in the consumption of a Photoshop license. All of these license consumptions add up and become a growing expenditure over time<\/p>\n

\u2013 Tyler Miranda, Assistant VP IT Systems Administration<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

MAKING VDI A REALITY<\/h3>\n

While Miranda initially was interested in FSLogix for profile container management, he soon pinpointed that its layering capabilities were the real answer he sought. \u201cWe created multiple application containers and overlaid those with profiles for our 300-plus users,\u201d Miranda explains. \u201cWe then configured one unified base image for all applications and expose
only those applications that users are authorized to see and use.\u201d<\/p>\n

Migration to Citrix XenDesktop and FSLogix Apps and Profile Containers began early this year. \u201cWe ran a proof of concept to validate the solution on several use cases,\u201d Miranda says. \u201cThe results were precisely what we wanted, and we made a final decision to move to a 100-percent VDI environment a little more than a month ago pending some
hardware infrastructure upgrades.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miranda is currently in the early process of his VDI migration and has about 10 percent of his total desktop, laptops, thin clients, and tablets using VDI. \u201cWe hope to migrate the remainder of our systems to VDI by the end of the year,\u201d he reports. The solution gives us the ability to support the bank\u2019s continued growth and acquisition strategy without adding more IT resources. We\u2019re not trying to plan for 400 users, but rather for 1,500 users. This is an important driving factor behind our VDI initiative.\u201d<\/p>\n

AVOIDING THE UNNECESSARY SOFTWARE LICENSE COSTS<\/h3>\n

One of the areas where Miranda is seeing immediate returns is licensing management. \u201cWe had a big challenge with our Adobe Acrobat licensing with the XenApp deployment,\u201d he says. \u201cThere was no easy way to control who had access to the Acrobat PDF printer or to the \u201cEdit in Acrobat\u201d Explorer context menu. Each time this happened, we technically acquired an additional license of Adobe Acrobat that we possibly didn\u2019t want for that user.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same scenario played out involving Adobe Photoshop. \u201cOur marketing department uses Adobe Creative Suite, but this is a very small subset of our total user population,\u201d Miranda notes. \u201cHowever, whenever someone would double click on a .PSD file, this would result in the consumption of a Photoshop license. These license consumptions add up and become a growing expenditure over time.\u201d<\/p>\n

MAKING VDI A REALITY<\/p>\n

Before the move to VDI and the combined Citrix XenDesktop and FSLogix solution, Miranda and his team used Citrix\u2019s user profile management in XenApp for user profile management. But the time required for staff to log into their systems was too long. \u201cUsers typically experienced anywhere between 45 and 90 seconds just to get into their Citrix session,\u201d Miranda recalls. \u201cThis was unacceptable and a significant productivity drain for us.\u201d This amounts to between 600 and 1,200 hours annually in time savings.<\/p>\n

While Miranda has the auto-disconnect timer in Citrix set for four hours on most systems in the bank, and thus those users only need to log into their VDI instance once per day, the IGEL Thin Clients used by tellers in the different branches are configured differently. \u201cTellers roam between the different thin clients throughout the day and need to log on and off between 5 and 10 times daily, for not all of the bank’s peripherals support session roaming,\u201d Miranda explains. \u201cFor these 60 or 70 employees, the differences in log-on times with XenApp versus XenDesktop and FSLogix are substantial.\u201d For tellers alone, time savings reach nearly 1,500 hours annually.<\/p>\n

VDI BECOMES A REALITY AT EQUITY BANK OFFICE 365 AND MORE<\/p>\n

Equity Bank sees other benefits from the VDI solution. \u201cWe\u2019re currently managing our Microsoft Office environment on our own server farm,\u201d Miranda observes. \u201cBut Office 365 is something we\u2019re looking at. Without FSLogix, we probably wouldn\u2019t have this option on the table, as Office 365 sees a significant performance degradation in a VDI environment. FSLogix caches it locally and resolves this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

VDI with FSLogix and IGEL Thin Clients also give Equity Bank a more stable workspace environment. \u201cOur helpdesk team spends less time reimaging and rebuilding desktops and laptops,\u201d Miranda says. \u201cThey simply power each of them on and send over command, and they are ready to go within two minutes of being activated.\u201d It previously took Miranda and his team an hour or more to image individual desktops and laptops. With VDI fully in place, this will translate into several hundred hours of time savings.<\/p>\n

Acquisition transitions to the Equity Bank IT infrastructure will be a more seamless process, too. \u201cThere are different regulations in the banking industry that require full system migration between business days,\u201d Miranda explains. \u201cBefore, when we would bring an acquired bank onto the Equity Bank network, we typically spent an entire weekend working days and nights to have everything ready for the opening of business on Monday. With VDI and FSLogix, we anticipate this timeframe will shrink to several hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The experience in working with FSLogix is the best that I\u2019ve ever had in working with a vendor\u2014from sales, to presales support, to post-sales support.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Tyler Miranda, Assistant VP, IT Systems Administrator<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

ABOUT EQUITY BANK<\/h3>\n

Founded by Chairman and CEO Brad Elliott in Andover, Kansas, Equity Bank offices are now located in Andover, Coffeyville, Ellis, Hays, Independence, Neodesha, Overland Park, Pittsburg, Topeka, and Wichita, Kansas, and Clinton, Higginsville, Kansas City, Knob Noster, Lee\u2019s Summit, Sedalia, Sweet Springs, Warrensburg, Warsaw and Windsor, Missouri, and Berryville, Eureka Springs, Harrison and Pea Ridge, Arkansas. Over the past decade, we\u2019ve been building one of the region\u2019s fastest-growing banks by working side by side with our customers throughout their communities in Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas. We didn\u2019t just inherit a bank, we built one.<\/p>\n

ABOUT FSLOGIX<\/h3>\n

FSLogix is a leading innovator of solutions that enable the enterprise virtual workspace, reducing the amount of hardware, time and labor required to support cloud and virtual desktops. FSLogix Apps seamlessly integrates with desktop virtualization solutions from Microsoft, Citrix, VMware, and other industry leaders. The company is headquartered in Atlanta, GA, with offices in Orem, UT, and Chelmsford, Essex, UK. For more information, visit www.fslogix.com.<\/p>\n

ABOUT INSENTRA<\/h3>\n

We dare to be different.<\/p>\n

Insentra is a collaborative IT Services partner delivering specialised Professional and Managed Services. Our partner-centric model provides you direct access to industry expertise. We believe great business relationships start with trust. We are 100% channel-focused meaning we only transact and deliver services exclusively with our partners.<\/p>\n

Partnering with Insentra provides access to:<\/p>\n