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Hengelo adopts PC-Duo for consistent user support

Customer: Hengelo Local Government Authority, Netherlands
Solution: PC-Duo® On-Demand

Hengelo is a thriving town in eastern Netherlands, close to the border with Germany and with excellent transport links. It has preserved a sense of its history and is culturally very active.

At the same time, it has created a climate which is attractive to modern industry and is proud to host such internationally renowned companies such as Akzo Nobel, Delaval, Eaton, Siemens, Stork Plastic Machinery and Thales. Hengelo is promoting expansion of its industrial and commercial activities with the development of the 190 hectares Westermaat Industrial Park, attracting organizations such as RTV Oost, Eaton and IKEA and with an international grade hotel and conference centre being built by Van der Valk.

It is no surprise then that the Local Government for Gemeente Hengelo is just as forward looking in its IT infrastructure. In the first half of 2013, a major refresh of the PC network is being completed.

An important element of this is the introduction of virtualized Windows 7 desktops (with Windows 8 a future possibility), using VMware®, for approximately 700 of its PC users.

Hengelo projects significant savings in operational costs, with all the benefits of only having to maintain standard images, without the need to distribute updates to hundreds of desktop systems.

Virtualization delivers great savings in platform maintenance, but that still leaves a requirement for efficient and effective user support from the servicedesk. That has always been achieved using remote control techniques, plus excellent skills and experience in the support team, so Hengelo now needed a PC remote control solution compatible with VMware. At the same time, Hengelo would be retaining about 150 conventional Windows 'thick client' systems which would also need both user support and remote management and configuration support, and approximately 150 Windows servers would also need remote management and configuration support.

Jos Schulte, head of the IT department, has overall responsibility for the total IT environment at Gemeente Hengelo delivering top quality service and support. Jos and his team of specialists decided they wanted a full­ featured Windows remote control product to work across Hengelo's servers, its conventional desktops and its new VMware hosted virtual desktops. Options were limited, but his team identified Vector Network's PC­-Duo® as providing consistent functionality across all their platforms.

As Jos remarked - "One standard PC­-Duo Master UI provides access to any system, with all PC­-Duo's proven functionality such as shared connection for team working, file transfer, multi­monitor support, session recording and replay. The On-Demand Concurrent Master licensing offered by Vector is appropriate for our highly efficient support team. The ratio of support staff to supported users is a good match with the pricing for the Concurrent Master licensing, enabling us to take advantage of the Unlimited Hosts that is a feature of the Concurrent Master licensing model."

PC­-Duo was rolled out in a few hours to the conventional desktops and the servers using Active Directory Group Policies, and embedded within the VMware baseline images.