Building supplies company creates a reliable IT environment with virtual desktops

Segl Bauzentrum needed to overhaul the structure of its client server to interact with a new merchandise management system.

Until recently, the company’s 160 back-office staff had been using workstations and infrastructure based on an outdated client server solution. This setup could no longer cope with the rapid growth Segl had experienced over recent years, a fact which became particularly apparent when its franchiser, Hagebau, decided to introduce a new merchandise management system. This modern and more demanding software would not run on Segl’s aging clients and the amount of maintenance the devices required was also becoming excessive. So the company decided to ask IT service provider and OpenText partner, Datapex, to help it to virtualize the desktop infrastructure.

The concept was to replace 160 existing desktop clients with a grand total of zero clients. All of the company’s applications, aside from the merchandise management system, would run on Datapex servers rather than on-site computers. Employees would have just monitors and keyboards on their desks for data input. Backups would also be run in the central data center.

For Benjamin De Smet, Datapex’s project manager, OpenText VM Explorer was the obvious choice for the company’s backups: “We were already using it with a number of other customers. The solution is simple and works really well.”

According to De Smet, it is suitable for both smaller medium-sized companies that only need two to three virtual machines and for larger IT environments such as Segl’s. And, on top of this, it is considerably cheaper than other solutions.

De Smet also believes that VM Explorer has considerable technological advantages over other backup solutions in terms of ease-of-use, adapting to the installed solution and troubleshooting. Another key factor is the automated testing capabilities of VM Explorer.

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