England's South East Water Saves 80% by Choosing 2X VirtualDesktopServer over Citrix

LONDON, ENGLAND, March 11, 2011 (Press-News.org) South East Water, provider of water to over two million customers in southeastern England, have appreciated an 80% savings on terminal server-based application and desktop delivery by using 2X VirtualDesktopServer, a highly efficient, low-maintenance Citrix replacement.

By switching to 2X, South East Water replaced their expensive per-user licencing structure for a highly-affordable 2X per-server licensing model, allowing the deployment of business applications to desktops within minutes. The 2X licensing model has already provided substantial cost savings and the added efficiency has also reduced South East Water's application delivery costs to a fraction of what it was previously. 2X delivers applications to over a 1000 users at South East Water, which compromises a large percentage of the water utility's staff and contractors.

The seamless delivery of multiple applications was critical to South East Water's IT strategy when it merged with Mid Kent Water in 2007. While developing an application delivery approach, the group sought lower costs, quicker implementation and easily manageable alternatives to its existing Citrix solution, which lead them directly to 2X.

"The 2X platform is far easier to maintain, providing reduced administration and considerably quicker application deployment," said Dean Ashton, IT Infrastructure Team Leader, South East Water. "When we deployed 2X, it was installed, running and provisioning applications the same day, when we'd typically expect a lag of several weeks after implementation. We were also astounded by the savings 2X server-based licensing could deliver to our bottom line."

2X provides a simple management interface and because no training is required, the implementation reduced the pressure on South East Water's IT department as any member of the team can now deliver applications quickly, and with short notice. In comparison, Citrix required a higher skill set and many delays which decreased staff productivity.

"Server-based computing is rapidly accelerating as a way of reducing the desktop IT burden and cost in many organizations, but there is a danger that the cost of the application delivery solution itself will reduce total ROI," said Paul Robinson, UK Managing Director, 2X Software. "Many organizations like South East Water are realizing that per-user licensing and complex systems are not viable if they seek significant savings and benefit from radical changes in IT delivery."

To download an evaluation version of the 2X VirtualDesktopServer 9, please visit: 2X VirtualDesktopServer 9 Download.

About 2X VirtualDesktopServer 9

2X VirtualDesktopServer 9 delivers secure, centrally-managed access to virtual desktops (VDI) and applications hosted on Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware vSphere, ESX, and ESXi, Parallels Virtuozzo Containers, Citrix XenServer, Oracle VirtualBox, Windows Remote Desktop Services/Windows Terminal Services and other leading virtualization platforms.

Please see our 2X VirtualDesktopServer 9 features list for more information.

New 2X VirtualDesktopServer 9 features include:

New 2X Clients for Mobile Devices

2X Client for iPhone, iPad, Android and webOS includes seamless protocol support for mobile devices and features a custom keyboard which appears automatically when input fields are detected.

VDI Pool Management

Pools offer administrators more flexibility while managing an extensive number of guests, especially when they are implemented in large company infrastructures. Possible members for pool management may include all guests in the farm, all guests in a host, individual guests, native pools, pools within pools and templates.

Templates

Administrators can automatically create desktops from a single template, making it easier to distribute desktops to users. Templates are supported for VMware Server 2, VMware ESXi, VMware vCenter, Citrix Xen, Parallels 4, and Microsoft Hyper-V (in development). 2X templates are also deployable in Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Client.

VDI Guest/PC Agent Installation

VDI guests and PC agents can be remotely installed from the console. When installed, 2X VirtualDesktopServer 9 supports templates (VDI guest agents only), seamless applications, universal printing, and universal scanning, while also reducing traffic on the VDI agent. The new agents allow users to deploy applications to the local desktop directly from remote servers.

New 2nd Level Authentication

2X VirtualDesktopServer 9 now supports SafeNet and Aladdin two-factor authentication solutions.

Windows Client

With client-side logging, users can track data from past connections, helping to prevent future connectivity issues.

Additional New Features

2X VirtualDesktopServer 9 offers Wyse Desktop Broker support, allowing administrators to deploy applications and desktops from PCs, terminal servers, and VDI hosts. It also includes support for Parallels Server v4, and settings replication for the 2X Web Access Portal.

About South East Water

South East Water supplies top quality drinking water to 2.1 million customers in Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Berkshire. Each day it supplies 565 million litres of drinking water from its water treatment works along more than 14,500 kilometres of water mains to customers' taps. Their supply area covers 5,657 square kilometres. For more information, please visit: http://www.southeastwater.co.uk.

About 2X
2X Software Ltd develops enterprise server-based virtual computing software, enabling desktop virtualization and application streaming on personal computers and thin client devices. Its product line, which includes the award-winning 2X VirtualDesktopServer and 2X ApplicationServer, is easily scalable, installable, and manageable with straightforward licensing, resulting in product prices far below those of competitors. For more information, please visit: http://www.2x.com.