Globalia Handling reduces VDI and VDA costs by 50% and improves administration with Parallels RAS

The challengeReduce implementation and administration costs for VDI and VDA without sacrificing strict security

Globalia Handling, under the brand name Groundforce, specializes in providing ground handling services for aircraft, passengers, and baggage at airports.

With over 5,900 employees between Globalia Handling and other companies under the parent brand spread out across Europe, primarily Spain, precise coordination and non-stop efficiency aren’t just good—they are critically necessary.

As Globalia Handling looked to move their existing hybrid on-prem/cloud-based infrastructure to a solely cloud-based one through Amazon Web Services, it became clear that they needed a flexible solution that could support them.

“We were in a very complicated situation, in the middle of migrating our entire infrastructure from on-prem to the cloud, so we wanted to opt for a continuous solution,” says Óscar.

Because of the nature of the business, users are geographically dispersed and needed to be able to access corporate applications quickly and securely. This meant that Globalia Handling needed to be able to deploy applications centrally, and to make modifications to the platform without having access to each endpoint.

Cost was also a consideration. Globalia Handling was facing an increase in licensing fees for their upcoming renewal with Citrix and needed to evaluate options more in line with their budget.

The testCould Parallels RAS give Globalia Handling an affordable and efficient solution to see them through their migration?

Globalia Handling had two key priorities in selecting Parallels RAS.

First, they needed a single workspace that could allow them to access, deploy, and update all corporate applications remotely.

Second, they needed to be able to reduce VDI and VDA implementation and administration costs while maintaining compliance with strict security standards.

Additionally, because the companies under the parent brand have a high number of self-developed web applications, the solution they chose needed to be able to handle the workload from those applications.

After a 30-minute session with a sales engineer, Globalia Handling was set up with a functional environment. They tested Parallels RAS over the course of two months. This series of tests, which were performed concurrently with Globalia Handling’s migration, saw 40 simultaneous users added to the system with two session hosts, two gateways, and two brokers.

“The system was always stable with sufficient resources,” says Óscar.

The solutionParallels RAS delivers cost reductions, simplicity, and efficiency in a high-precision industry

By providing an alternative to their existing system, Parallels RAS has enabled Globalia Handling to face their migration to cloud-based infrastructure with a continuous solution that exceeds their expectations.

Because Parallels RAS specializes in real-time data flow and user interactions, it has greatly improved users’ ability to access corporate applications in a time-sensitive work environment.

Additionally, the high availability load balancing in Parallels RAS has kept the system fully operational throughout the migration, ensuring users always have access to what they need.

Now, Globalia Handling can have 420 users operating simultaneously on 13 virtual machines (VMs), with three VMs dedicated to infrastructure. This is a drastic change from the 40 VMs and seven VMs dedicated to infrastructure they needed from Citrix.

“The HALB does a very good job of balancing and distributing the sessions evenly, which makes the system work well,” says Óscar. “We rarely see performance alerts, and it never goes over 80% of RAM and CPU.”

The resultReduced costs for licenses and infrastructure without sacrificing security

Since implementing Parallels RAS, Globalia Handling has seen:

• Costs reduced by approximately 50%: Parallels RAS has enabled Globalia Handling to cut back both on the number of licenses needed and on the costs of maintaining their overall infrastructure.
• Improved ease of use: Globalia Handling has seen improvements in the administration and deployment of applications and desktops.
• Accessible, efficient, and fast support: It was a priority for Globalia Handling to have support from their supplier to face any challenges that came up, and they have reported an exceptional experience with Parallels RAS so far—including a new functionality they requested and received in the next release.

With Parallels RAS, Globalia Handling has seen the flexibility, cost expectations, and efficiency they were hoping for as they migrated to a cloud-based environment. The positive impact Parallels RAS has had shows that it’s a powerful choice for organizations managing hybrid and cloud-based IT infrastructures and balancing multiple priorities in a high-pressure business.

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