Flexible Working at Hiscox
Gareth Wharton – Head of Architecture and Innovation
July 2012
[email protected]
@theboyg
V2, 9/7/2012
Who are Hiscox.. ?
Bermuda (HQ)
UK
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Birmingham
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Colchester
Europe
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Glasgow
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Amsterdam
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Leeds
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Bordeaux
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London
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Brussels
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Maidenhead
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Cologne
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Manchester
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Dublin
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Hamburg
USA
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Lisbon
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Armonk
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Lyon
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Atlanta
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Madrid
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Chicago
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Munich
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Los Angeles
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Paris
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Manhattan
Guernsey
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Miami
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San Francisco
Hamilton
St Peter Port
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Who are Hiscox?
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IT Background
• Whole company served from our 2 co-lo data centres
(Telecity in London and Paris)
• We are predominantly an HP house, based on blade
infrastructure and 3 PAR replicated storage
• Heavy users of a range of Citrix products
• All offices apart from London were already on
XenApp 5 using Wyse terminals
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Why flexible working
• We wanted true work anywhere
– Any other Hiscox office
– home
– Mobile
• Single platform to support
• Increased data security
• Reduced support costs (our analysis showed Citrix
users log on average half as many calls, and they
are fixed twice as quickly 4hrs vs. 8hrs)
• We had most of the components available
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What did we decide to do ?
• Primary goal was to move away from desktops on to
Citrix
• We decided to go with XenDesktop rather than XenApp
• Mostly to meet new requirements such as streaming
media / Instant Messenger / VoIP / Desktop VC
• Decided to stay with XP, but we upgraded from Office
2003 to 2007. Upgrade also included IE, McAfee antivirus and Acrobat etc.
• In addition (but outside of this programme, we
standardised on Cisco VoIP phones across the group, to
assist with flexible working)
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How did we do it?
• We were already using XenApp on XenServer
• Wider use of Provisioning server
• Created 2 versions of XenDesktop, streamed and
dedicated
• Aimed at 85% streamed / 10% Dedicated / 5%
Remain on Desktop split
• Hardware refresh to new HP G7 BL465 with 24cores
and 128Gb of RAM
• Installed Citrix Password Manager
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How did we do?
• 500 users moved (last tranche just about to
transition)
• Around 100 users on dedicated (IT developers /
marketing / corporate communications)
• Whole company served out of 2 blade enclosures
per site (half a rack)
• Some desktops still remain (<40)
• Reduced password reset calls to the helpdesk from
40 on first working day of 2011 to 4 on first working
day 2012
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What are the benefits?
• Users can genuinely roam to any desk in the
company where there's a Wyse terminal
• One platform to manage (removed the vast majority
of desktops)
• Increased security (no data stored locally)
• Very simple remote access (secure and identical to
working in the office)
• Over 30% reduction in power usage (17,000
kWh/month, £20k pa and a corresponding reduction
in CO2 1.5 tons/month)
• Extended hardware lifecycle (standard PC = 3 years,
Wyse Terminal = 5/7 years)
• Over 100 PC's donated to charities, remainder
securely recycled
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What were the challenges?
• Migrating 500 different images to one standard one
• Wyse terminal performance (dual 24" monitors)
• AppSense has had some instability, probably our
main pain point during UAT
• Performance for very heavy users (actuarial and
catastrophe modelling)
• Microsoft Licensing (device vs. User based licensing)
• Every problem is a Citrix one
• Need a chaos Monkey
© Brian Madden
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What Next ?
• Just moved IT department to Hot desking
• Introduce Citrix on iPad
• Investigate migrating existing XenApp users
depending on enhancements on XenApp 6.5 /
Windows 2008
• Pilot of XenApp 6.5, XenDesktop 5.6 / Windows7 /
Office2010 and beyond
• Try to get the remaining desktops decommissioned
• Solve the laptop challenge (tablets?)
• Network Access Control
• ShareFile
• BYOD pilot in 2013 ?
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Questions...
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