Hispalco: Desktops accessible from anywhere with UDS VDI

• Name: Hispalco S.A.

• Sector: Horticulture

• Number of employees: 30

• Location: Puzol (Valencia, Spain)

In order for fresh fruits and vegetables to reach the customer’s plates in optimal quality conditions, all the processes from the moment they are collected in the field until they arrive at the points of sale have to be cared for in detail. Hispalco markets a wide variety of these products in 28 countries around the world through five brands that are distinguished by their uniqueness, their category and their meticulous selection. Innovation is one of its hallmarks and its commitment to desktop virtualization technology with UDS Enterprise has been key in keeping the professional and personalized management of all its services intact during the Covid-19 health crisis. “Luckily we already had this solution in place when the pandemic arrived, and we were able to make the transition to remote working urgently,” explains Armando Ara, specialist from Hispalco’s IT Department.

The entire staff uses virtual desktops managed and deployed with UDS Enterprise in their day-to-day work at the office. The Executive President, the departments of Quality, Purchasing, Control and Stock of Materials, Sales, Accounting, Finance and, of course, the IT and Operations departments have long benefited from the important advantages of this technology.

“We started the project with the idea of serving remote desktops to our employees within the company and it was very easy to adapt the platform so that they were accessible from any location,” comments Ara.

Among its virtues, the company’s IT area highlights “the possibility of being able to launch a remote desktop session simply by having a terminal with a browser installed.” This option has saved them from having to invest time in making specific configurations in the terminals used by all the workforce. In addition, it has allowed them to implement thin clients and reuse Linux devices that they had discarded due to their low power, as well as because they were incompatible with their previous VDI solution. They have achieved significant cost savings, without having to incur the costs of acquiring new devices.

The adoption of their current desktop virtualization software was recommended by Quer System, UDS Enterprise Gold Partner and trusted provider of Hispalco. “Following Dell’s discontinuation of vWorkspace, we had to find an efficient and secure alternative. We verified that UDS Enterprise was the most optimal option to solve the client’s problems quickly. The migration and integration with the environment they already had was carried out with great agility, and we were even able to implement improvements. Now their VDI platform is much more versatile and complete. We have been able to expand it and offer as an added value the possibility of enabling remote access to the physical equipment located in the offices. In this way, the company is fully prepared so that all its employees can work from home,” says Jesús Hernández, an expert in UDS Enterprise at Quer System.

SECURE AND RELIABLE 24×7 ACCESS

Hispalco’s VDI infrastructure is available both for users working at headquarters and for those who travel to different locations. Each group of users has a specific and optimized desktop so that they can perform their tasks as efficiently as possible.

All of them have safe and reliable access to their work tools 24×7, from any place and device. UDS Enterprise provides an important layer of security, encrypting all connections and the data that travels through them from end to end. The company’s IT team has further protected the infrastructure, by integrating the VDI solution with its firewall, which is configured following its strict security policies.

The management of the entire environment is carried out centrally from a single console accessed through a web browser. From there, it is possible to deploy new workstations, automate software maintenance tasks, schedule actions, generate usage reports and, among other things, monitor and control platform activity.

The configuration and start-up of the project were carried out by Quer System, which also provided the necessary training to Hispalco IT specialists to learn how to use it. “All the operations carried out by Quer System have been really successful. Their attention is truly close, they have helped us a lot from day one. They are fast and have adapted to our needs,” appreciates Armando Ara.

Regarding their assessment of UDS Enterprise, the IT department and users agree that it is “very positive, it stands out for its usability, using the tool is really simple.“

Given their good experience, they encourage other organizations that need to implement a remote desktop environment to rely on this software. “We recommend it for companies of all sizes. UDS Enterprise is a VDI solution with fast operation, it is customizable, secure, and it has a great support service,” concludes Ara.

VDI INFRASTRUCTURE

• Broker: UDS Enterprise

• Hypervisor: VMware vSphere

• Connection protocols: RDP and HTML5

• Authenticator: Active Directory

• VDI OS: Windows

• VDI access OS: Windows, macOS and Chrome OS

• Hardware resources: 3 virtual machines with one or two CPU and 1Gb RAM each