The Problem: Application Virtualization Needed Relief
Our client is a leading enterprise global healthcare solutions provider with more than100,000 employees globally. They needed to streamline the delivery of thousands of applications to their employees, but were unable to successfully virtualize them.
For their IT department, installing, configuring, and managing applications at global scale was exceptionally difficult. Application packaging and delivery challenges were compounded by the fact that they operate in a highly regulated environment. Most of their applications are comprised of complex scientific software, which must remain on the same application version for the lifetime of a project – which can take years. During that time, employees may have other workstreams that all require different applications. Ultimately, these conflicting priorities made it difficult to successfully deliver applications across environments, manage conflicts, ensure compliance, and control costs. The leadership at this healthcare organization decided to utilize application virtualization to deliver a large subset of applications. App-V was able to package a number of applications and solve some management issues, but it was unable to virtualize those that had drivers that were incompatible with their destination platform or dependencies on other applications installed on the system.The Solution: Guaranteeing Application Compatibility
The healthcare organization selected 50 applications that App-V had been unable to package, with a user base of approximately 8,000 people. These included Internet Explorer 9 with a specific Java JRE required for a legacy web application, Adobe Standard, Microsoft Excel 2010, and custom health sciences applications. Each individual application was packaged via Cloudpaging Studio and uploaded to the organization’s internal application store, with even the most complicated applications taking less than a day. After an internal survey of the application users, we found most people did not realize anything about their experience had changed, but noted application conflicts and version control issues had been eliminated. The success of the trial led our client to expand the use of Cloudpaging to several thousand applications, becoming the standard for internal application delivery. We also set up an integration with App-V so they could continue leveraging its existing workflows.The Results: Ensuring Application Compatibility
By adopting Cloudpaging as the standard for application delivery, the company was able to overcome all application management challenges, including hurdles for virtualization, isolation of dependencies, and license management. Every Cloudpaged application was successfully packaged and delivered to end user desktops across physical and virtual systems in the organization’s application repository and off-site campus locations. IT staff now are able to control application access and versions from a central location, eliminating conflicts for end users, guaranteeing project-based compliance, and increasing productivity. Cloudpaging also drastically reduced application support tickets, further reducing costs. In total, the organization realized more than $9.3M dollars in annual savings on on packaging costs alone.| Application Type | Cost to Package | Cloudpaging Packaging Time | App-V Packaging Time | Number of Applications Packaged Per Year | Average ROI Savings Utilizing Cloudpaging |
| Simple Application (Browsers, Productivity) | $100/hour per | 1 – 2 hours per application | 3 – 6 hours per application | 250 | $75K – $150K |
| Medium Complex Application (AutoCAD, Photoshop) | $100/hour per | 2 – 4 hours per application | 6 – 32 hours per application | 1000 | $300K – $4.4M |
| Very Complex Application (Legacy Custom Applications) | $100/hour per | 8 – 16 hours per application | 40 – 320 hours per application | 1000 | $560K – $9.3M |