Groupe Promutuel Ensures High-Performance Remote Computing with Citrix

The challenge: Supporting an organization across widely dispersed, often highly remote locations

Groupe Promutuel is made up of 26 independent entities operating through more than 140 offices across Quebec—a province larger than California, Texas and Utah combined. The company’s workforce, including 1,650 internal users and another 1,500 external insurance resellers, accesses IT services over a wide range of WAN technologies from ADSL to D3. “We have sites of 50 people that are 12 hours from the next major city, well beyond the reach of fiber,” says Jamie Schofield, network architect at Groupe Promutuel. “Trying to increase bandwidth to these locations wasn’t financially viable, and the technology simply wasn’t available.” Groupe Promutuel needed a way to support these users more effectively within their existing network capacity, while also reducing the need to support remote hardware.

The solution: accelerating web service performance with Citrix networking solutions

Groupe Promutuel’s use of Citrix solutions to support its dispersed workforce began with the deployment of Citrix NetScaler to accelerate and load-balance various web services. Next, the Group deployed Citrix XenDesktop and Citrix XenApp to centrally manage and deliver virtual desktops and streaming applications, first to its partner businesses, then to its own employees. Citrix XenServer helped the company reduce its hardware footprint across locations while increasing IT agility. Still, a crucial challenge remained. “There was no reasonable WAN technology to extend to many of our remote locations, and we didn’t want to add any physical components in the field that we couldn’t easily manage centrally,” says Schofield. Citrix offered a solution to integrate NetScaler VPX virtual appliances with the group’s existing Cisco UCS server hardware. “I was able to deploy an edge router to the field that also runs a hypervisor, a virtualization server and an acceleration server, all in a single device that doesn’t require additional management, power or office space.” Citrix CloudBridge provided service-centric WAN optimization to help Group Promutuel optimize its available network capacity, accelerate service performance and reduce bandwidth consumption.

Key benefit: maintaining competitive advantage with high-performance remote computing

With XenDesktop, Groupe Promutuel can easily deliver applications and desktops as a service to users in any location. “Citrix enabled us to implement a flexible environment that makes it much easier for other companies to sell our products. It’s definitely a competitive differentiator,” says Schofield. “We’ve achieved astonishing results with CloudBridge, such as a five-fold improvement in application performance over limited bandwidth.” In the past, Groupe Promutuel struggled to support even a smaller number of resellers across Quebec. The Group now adds hundreds of new users each year, ensuring a high-performance experience no matter where they are.

Key benefit: increasing control and security through centralization

“It was very important for us to be able to normalize our work environment, including the desktops we provide to users, and to better control where our information is and who can access it,” says Schofield. Previously, the Group’s documents were spread across 30 servers in the field as well as numerous user desktops. “Now we have everything in a centralized, controlled and secure environment. Citrix has changed the game in terms of what we’re able to do.” The Group is now using its Citrix environment as the foundation for a new business continuity and disaster recovery strategy.

Key benefit: improving IT efficiency

Groupe Promutuel’s centralized environment makes it much simpler to provide a fully up-to-date experience for its users. “We’re currently deploying Microsoft Windows 7 with the latest Microsoft Office tools. Citrix gives us a single point for that upgrade, helping us deliver it more efficiently at a lower cost,” says Schofield.