Established as a Civil, religious association governed by private law and with an assistance, educational and philanthropic character, UBEC (Brazilian Union of Catholic Education) redesigned the entire network on a national scale, with the objective of offering a digital and secure workspace to academic and administrative portals. , used by employees and students. Now, users of UBEC systems can access computing-intensive tools and applications from any device, anywhere, with Citrix solutions.
The UBEC Group used Citrix solutions on premises to promote virtualization capabilities to your ecosystem. It recently migrated its digital work environment through Citrix Virtual Apps & Desktops to the cloud. This new project, implemented by Brasoftware, began operating in the first quarter of 2021.
The work began at the Centro Universitário Católica do Leste de Minas Gerais (UniLeste), covering the academic environment with Thin Clients. By expanding the use of Citrix technology to ten more mission units of the UBEC Group, there was a restructuring and centralization in the Central Office, located in Brasília (DF), of the entire administration of the environment for use by students and teachers from anywhere. Following the new model, other institutions of the Group in other states began to use Citrix for digital work environments.
“To deliver physical equipment to the student was a complex task, as it demanded time and money due to the difficulty of formatting and creating new images of the machines. Like citrix Virtual Apps & Desktops, is an automatic process. In other words, this new environment provides access to the profile of any student when accessing the computer, making the Login. After entering the system, the student or teacher has access to applications, files and resources intended for them”, contextualizes Marcos Eduardo Oliveira e Silva, Infrastructure coordinator of the UBEC group, linked to the general IT coordination.
“We're talking about Citrix licenses that cover a total of almost 28,000 users. Our entire administrative and academic environment running on Citrix was essential to guarantee access to the Group's network, with security and tranquility”, completes Silva.
After the migration of systems in the basic education and higher education units of the UBEC Group to the cloud and the delivery of applications via Citrix, the institution declares that it has improved the stability and performance of the digital environment. Before, users faced problems that sometimes lasted for days and made it difficult, mainly, for the operation of the Integrated Business Management System (ERP) used by the administrative sector – responsible for the secretariat and pedagogical assistance.
complete experience
With the need for flexible access at the beginning of the pandemic, in March 2020, the area responsible for the technology infrastructure of the UBEC Group was prepared and consolidated with the full use of solutions from citrix enabling main access to the network. In this way, every employee started to use data and/or applications from the network through Citrix technology, which minimized any impacts on the experience during the home office.
Keeping social distance, teachers and students used the laboratories remotely and applications such as AutoCAD, Photoshop and others that demand high computational performance. Today, UBEC's entire digital environment runs on the Citrix platform.
UBEC's IT team reports that currently, the user has greater visibility, can understand which systems are available and enjoy the quality of a technology that allows them to organize everything centrally, representing a significant advantage in terms of user experience.
safety differentials
In terms of security, the adoption of the technology citrix provides an extra layer of protection for around 60 internal systems. They trigger different ports and domains, thus reducing the chances of attacks.
Previous technology used for remote access to data and applications did not allow blocking of file transfers, which was inadequate in terms of risk management. Today, when the user opens the app, if he does not have an antivirus, UBEC's protection is already emulated on the machine, creating a barrier between his home and the institution's environment. All traffic is authenticated, so there is no possibility of browsing without a previously authorized username and password. In addition, there is control with firewall all access with Citrix, regardless of where the work is done, enabling the use of any device, from anywhere, securely.
At UBEC, the employee works in a hybrid model and can use the device when in the office or at home, with personal equipment or equipment provided by the institution. That's because there are resources in Virtual Apps & Desktops profile sharing that consists of saving the user's desktop.
Main benefit is the student experience
From the student's point of view, UBEC is able to offer a more attractive experience via citrix, due to the quality and high performance of the virtual work environment to support more robust applications such as AutoCAD or Eclipse, for example.
The reports from students and employees are positive in terms of the quality of experience in using the systems and the UBEC IT team also highlights the ease of operating an updated park with around five thousand physical equipment, in addition to 1,500 in laboratories. Other benefits, regarding the use of Citrix, cited by UBEC were:
- Quick access, regardless of the device's lifespan;
- Security, both for the employee and for the students, through access through the personal profile;
- Ease of access: easily managed applications, as well as centralized information and access;
- economy in upgrade and acquisition of computers, which offers updated terminals or machines with cost reduction.
Economy
The project took into account three scenarios referring to savings in the acquisition of computers in the UBEC Group's technology park, namely: 1st scenario: Exchange of the entire technology park; 2nd scenario: Exchange of older computers and upgrade of computers with less time of use; and 3rd scenario: upgrade and use of Citrix solutions on strategic computers, specifically all computer labs and desktops administrative.
Following the third scenario, with the upgrade strategic machines and the use of Citrix solutions, UBEC generated savings of 87% in value compared to the first scenario and 43% compared to the second.
migration to cloud gives citrix
UBEC created a cloud environment with the Citrix Application Delivery, to move the management platform to the manufacturer's cloud. The cloud platform allows the implementation of desktops and applications to end users to work in a hybrid way. The platform makes it possible to reduce the number of servers and maintenance costs.
Infrastructure management by Citrix gives UBEC flexibility, including in a disaster recovery scenario, where it is necessary to restore the system as quickly as possible.
“Today, we have a more consolidated and stable environment, resulting in enormous productivity gains, with access control resources and centralized management of the entire environment, which is important for business continuity”, emphasizes Silva.
“It is a great satisfaction to be part of a project that has positively impacted the experience of thousands of students and teachers. We have with UBEC and with Brasoftware a long-standing partnership that has managed to promote safety, speed, economy and productivity to so many educational institutions in the country”, says Luciana Pinheiro, Sales Director at Citrix Brasil.
