Case Study Summary
A multinational insurance and financial services institution was one of the early adopters of Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop. To successfully adopt the platform, they needed to ensure all their applications could seamlessly run in cloud-hosted desktop environments in a cost-efficient manner while meeting stringent security and compliance requirements.
By packaging their applications into Numecent’s Cloudpaging® container format and deploying them with Cloudpager®, they were able to successfully:
- Enable “just-in-time” application delivery to persistent and non-persistent virtual desktops
- Reduce reliance on virtual desktop images for AVD users across their enterprise
- Standardize on Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session environments, enabling them to significantly reduce virtual desktop run costs
- Prove compliance in a cloud context to regulatory authorities
Customer Overview
The Numecent customer is a multinational insurance and financial services institution with more than 100 million clients around the world, supported by 150,000 employees in 50+ countries. As part of their cloud-first initiative, they partnered directly with Microsoft to be one of the first movers on Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD).
Applications Hindered Azure Virtual Desktop Adoption
With the move to cloud-hosted desktops, the company needed a solution that enabled them to run their applications in a highly performant manner while adhering to business and regulatory requirements across business units and country lines. For example, they need field representatives to have the same application experience regardless of their geography while ensuring compliance with local compliance standards (e.g., field representatives in London must be able to demonstrate compliance to the London Banking Regulator).
The move to Azure Virtual Desktop also introduced application compatibility challenges. One of the primary cost savings enterprises can realize with Azure Virtual Desktop is standardizing on Enterprise multi-session environments – the lowest cost Windows operating system, which can save more than 6X on desktop run costs. The company has several complex legacy and highly customized applications in their estate that were unable to run in multi-session environments without conflict when utilizing traditional application deployment mechanisms.
To address these requirements, IT was utilizing multiple desktop images for different regions and user groups, leading to unnecessary image bloat and significant downtime for application deployments and updates.
The Solution to Accelerating Azure Virtual Desktop Adoption
Microsoft specifically recommended Numecent to the company’s IT team while planning their Azure Virtual Desktop adoption roadmap. Their primary reasoning was the unparalleled application compatibility rate of Numecent’s Cloudpaging container technology. Utilizing Cloudpaging’s unique disposition layers and granular controls, they were able to package even their most complex applications with their dependencies, enabling interoperability between applications while isolating specific components of the applications that introduced conflicts in multi-session environments.
They also incorporated Numecent’s Cloudpager platform to instantly enable dynamic application provisioning at global scale from a single pane of glass. This enabled them to fully realize their cloud-first vision, establishing a cloud-native application delivery mechanism for their new Azure Virtual Desktop estate, as well as their physical endpoints as needed.
DevOps Capabilities for Windows Application Management
By virtualizing their entire application estate with Cloudpaging and moving application management to Cloudpager, the company streamlined application management across physical and virtual Windows desktop environments. More specifically, containerizing their applications and leveraging a cloud-native container management platform for Windows desktops (Cloudpager) ensured all applications could be dynamically provisioned, updated, rolled back, and removed from end user desktops – including non-persistent multi-session AVD environments. This enabled them to accelerate their Azure Virtual Desktop adoption, while reducing application management overhead and costs.
Established Dynamic Application Provisioning
Moving to a cloud-hosted desktop environment requires a fundamentally different approach to application provisioning. IT wanted to establish parity between natively installed application load times and those provisioned from the cloud. Cloudpaging’s integration to FSLogix, ephemeral storage, and Azure Files as a backup enabled IT to dynamically provision them to all end users on-demand across physical and virtual desktops. With performance optimizations implemented alongside the Numecent team, they were able to achieve application load times that are indistinguishable from natively installed applications.
Reduced Dependency on Desktop Images
By virtualizing their application estate and dynamically provisioning them directly to end users, the company was able to remove their applications from their desktop images. This instantly reduced the amount of desktop images required. Now they only use Microsoft’s standard gallery image provisioned by Microsoft each month within Azure Virtual Desktop itself. This reduces manual overhead required of IT to crack open desktop images for every net-new application deployment and update, in turn mitigating collective end user downtime for the monthly upgrades.
Standardized on Windows 10 Enterprise Multi-Session
Traditional application delivery mechanisms and other application streaming technologies expose data in multi-session environments. Cloudpaging’s patented container technology isolates applications and their respective data from other users on shared machines, enabling them to standardize on Windows 10 Enterprise Multi-Session across their enterprise in a secure and compliant manner. In turn, IT was able to maximize user density on shared machines, yielding significant cost savings.
Note
Microsoft’s Azure pricing calculator estimates standardizing on Windows 10/11 enterprise multi-session can reduce Azure Virtual Desktop run costs more than 5x.
Provided Compliance in a Cloud Context
Cloudpaging meters all application usage, providing an unbiased depiction of application consumption across business units. Detailed reports can be generated via the management console to facilitate rapid information dissemination, ensuring IT is always audit-ready.
Moreover, its granular software license controls and automated policy enforcement enable them to seamlessly manage applications across organizations while ensuring business and regulatory requirements are met down to the local level.
Enabled End Users to Customize Their Virtual Desktop Experience
Cloudpaged applications appear to users as if natively installed, allowing them to customize their experience as if operating a physical device. Cloudpaging container’s disposition layers provide more flexibility for application extensions so end users can work on virtual desktops as they would a physical desktop with natively installed applications.
Conclusion
It only takes one application to derail your desktop modernization initiatives. Numecent’s Cloudpaging technology provides the highest application compatibility rate, ensuring even the most complex legacy and custom applications can seamlessly run across modern Windows desktop environments – including Windows 10/11 Enterprise multi-session Azure Virtual Desktop environments – in a secure and compliant manner.
By dynamically provisioning applications directly to end users, enterprises can achieve a single golden image and streamline application management across their enterprise. Ultimately, enterprises can fully realize their cloud-first initiatives at a global scale while providing IT administrators and end users with a seamless application experience.
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