The Regional Authority of the South Moravian Region has started to use VMware Horizon virtual desktops. The ongoing gradual transition from physical computers to new technology, which was originally scheduled towards the end of this year, was significantly accelerated by the March declaration of a state of emergency and the related closure of the Authority for public. The necessary transfer of a large amount of employees to the home office work mode meant the immediate implementation of virtual desktops. The new technology was launched in less than a day for almost 200 employees. Using VMware Horizon 7, more than half of the total 800 users can work from home. All critical services provided by the region – from health care to social services to transport – thus can be provided without any interruption.
“Due to the outbreak, we needed to react really quickly and shift to remote working. The use of virtual desktops running on the VMware Horizon platforms proved to be crucial, enabling us to make all important systems, applications and data available to employees now working from home. Employees who need internal information systems to work have full access to what they need and can perform their jobs well. This has allowed our organisation to keep providing services to the residents of South Moravia,” says Miroslav Vacula, Head of the IT Department of the Regional Authority of the South Moravian Region.
The goal of the entire migration process to VMware Horizon 7 virtual desktops is to minimize the need to replace the Office’s computers and to deploy thin clients in the future. Increasing the security of user data, enabling secure access to internal systems from external locations, simplifying IT administration and achieving financial savings are also key. An important aspect is also the easier possibility of future transfer of the systems to the cloud infrastructure.
The Regional Authority decided to implement the virtual desktops technology with regard to finances and the condition of client workstations. The transition process has been going on since 2018, when the speed of the Internet connection was increased to symmetrical 1 Gb / s and when the replacement of the server infrastructure was started. This continued in 2019, along with the acquisition and implementation of VMware Horizon 7 virtual desktops, the entire process was originally scheduled to be completed by the end of this year. VMware Horizon was implemented by VMware partners Com-Sys TRADE and Arrow ECS.
