Communications Department of Voronezh region deploys virtual desktop infrastructure

January 27, 2014 it became known about the introduction of virtual desktops on Windows 8.1 in the department of communications and mass communications of the Voronezh region.

Project tasks

Employees of the department, especially its leaders, often go on business trips, work outside the office. This mode of activity requires constant and widespread access to documents and work from various devices, including mobile ones (iPad, Mac OS, Surface, Android devices, etc.). The existing IT infrastructure had significant limitations in this area. Before each trip, it was necessary to separately copy the necessary part of the information to the electronic medium - in the absence of access to the entire information array.

The Department of Communications and Mass Communications of the Voronezh Region worked to find a solution that will ensure constant and universal access to and work with documents from various devices, including mobile ones. The solution was found - it was based on VDI technology, which ensures the rapid deployment of a common desktop environment in the corporate network.

Project course

The decision was deployed in a month. Using VDI and Windows 8 on virtual desktops, the department has a robust and secure platform for working with documents from anywhere and from any device, thereby increasing productivity.

"We needed to find a solution that would ensure greater productivity and speed of carrying out operational tasks," said Artem Verkhovtsev, head of the communications and mass communications department of the Voronezh region. - Employees and management of the department needed the ability to work on devices with any software platform, compatibility of devices and applications. In addition, we wanted to find a solution that was safe and reliable, and the implementation of which would not require serious time and financial costs. "

Since the department had previously deployed IT infrastructure, there was a large pool of Microsoft licenses for products: Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, MS Office 365, decided to use existing resources, including hardware.

Specialists of the Change group of companies were involved in the development of the solution. The two teams made a joint decision - to leave the existing infrastructure, changing the approach to work, this reduced the cost and time to implement the solution.

The existing cluster deployed the virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and the Microsoft SharePoint Online service from Office 365. The project involved Microsoft solutions: Microsoft Windows System Center 2012, Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2, Microsoft Windows 8.1, Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Surface RT.

"Managing your virtual desktop infrastructure is easy, and it works with limited resources," said Alexey Nechiporuk, Microsoft's regional partner representative. - Customization of desktops to meet user requirements does not require serious efforts, updates occur quickly - all this significantly saves time and money. "

Project result

The management of the department noted a number of advantages of the solution:

• time saving: you do not have to decide which documents are needed for remote work (on a business trip, for example), search and copy them. Documents are available from anywhere and from any device.
• There is no need to develop document applications on other platforms. VDI can be used on any platform, which saves time and money on solution development.
• VDI infrastructure is deployed on an existing server cluster, it can be accessed from any device, any capacity. There is no need to upgrade server iron, end-user devices.