Case Study: Utility company sees 30% increase in infrastructure time

Scale Computing, a market-leader in edge computing, virtualisation and hyperconverged solutions, has announced that Harlingen WaterWorks System (HWWS), a Texas-based regional utility company, has implemented a new business-wide virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solution based on Scale Computing HC3.

Working with Scale Computing, and its partners Leostream and Liquidware, HWWS has reported major improvements in performance, reliability and security across its customer-centric IT environment.

With 27,000 customers and a major emphasis on the effectiveness and availability of its 24/7 consumer billing and support services, HWWS was looking to solve a range of VDI performance and service challenges. The company now runs 52 virtual machines across three Scale Computing HC3 appliances, using them to deliver a range of mission-critical applications. These include financials, utility billing, cash receipts, inventory and a number of other operational functions, such as general ledger and human resources.

With an IT team of just four people, HWWS has seen major efficiency gains, with infrastructure management time reduced by 30 percent over their previous solution. In addition, HWWS carries out synthetic backups every night and takes a snapshot of their environment on the Scale Computing HC3 once per hour. With the utility sector a frequent target of criminal malware attacks, this capability has become extremely significant to the business in protecting against technology failure and the potential risk of ransomware.

“We run a 24/7 environment and downtime is not an option for us,” explained John McKenna, IT director at Harlingen WaterWorks System.

“We take payments over the Internet, via kiosks and IVR phone payments, so if we are down even for a short time, it impacts our customers tremendously. With Scale Computing, we are at a huge advantage with their exceptional reliability. It’s not even a thought in our mind as to whether or not we’re going to have our computing assets available or not, since with Scale Computing, it’s easy to expand as our business does, and that’s a major benefit.”

Scale Computing has streamlined VDI for the distributed enterprise, and all those for whom VDI was unaffordable or unrealistic in the past. With their combined expertise of Scale Computing HC3, in combination with Leostream and Liquidware technology, provides a complete VDI solution that is simple to set up, easy to manage, cost-effective, while still offering all the same great features you’ll find from a legacy VDI solution.

“IT teams know the necessity of having a highly reliable, high performing IT infrastructure. Specifically, the HWWS team, who delivers an absolutely critical set of IT services, needed a technology and support solution that is strong in all areas,” commented Jeff Ready, CEO and co-founder, Scale Computing.

“By working with Scale Computing, Leostream and Liquidware, they have a solution which meets perhaps the most sought after, but under-achieved objective in the technology industry – it just works, extremely well.”

Until September 30th, 2019 Scale Computing is offering a 25% discount on a VDI solution that includes a minimum of four HC3 appliances with a two-year support and maintenance extension and 50 virtual desktop licenses from Leostream with a three-year support and maintenance extension. To take advantage of this limited-time offer (the last day you can claim this offer is September 30, 2019), contact us at [email protected].

With Scale Computing, Leostream and Liquidware, VDI is not only achievable for any size IT department, but available without complexity or prohibitive cost. The joint VDI solution works exceptionally well in VDI environments across various verticals, for a wide range of use cases from task workers to power users requiring a simple, secure and low-maintenance option to traditional desktop PCs.

 

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