The Problem

A prominent local bank contacted ICG seeking assistance with customer support challenges and a low internal IT department approval rating. The bank’s desktops and core applications system suffered from sluggish performance and latency issues, hindering its ability to serve customers effectively and resulting in frustrated clientele. Frequent outages caused substantial downtime across the bank and increased customer frustration. Bank personnel in all 25+ branches relied on their Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and thin clients to deliver over one hundred core business applications. In addition to the outages and virtual desktop issues, the applications themselves were underperforming and crashing regularly. Recognizing the critical need for improvement, the bank engaged ICG after hearing about our reputation as a process-first consultancy with extensive IT banking industry expertise. Collaborating closely with our team, they sought a solution to stabilize and then optimize their support and virtual platform.

The Solution

What was initially perceived as customer support challenges turned out to be a deeper-rooted issue. Our approach began with an in-depth discussion with the CTO and IT Operations Director, where we actively listened to their pain points. Following this, we conducted a high-level review of their support staff to ensure that desktop support was not part of the issues. During our discovery process, we identified several IT support process problems, with most issues resulting from the VDI and VMWare environment. Our analysis revealed instability within their VMware and VDI environment, as well as suboptimal architecture, configuration, and maintenance for Citrix and VMware. Continued investigation revealed that the support and operations staff did not have any procedures on how to properly install or configure their core business applications to ensure they ran optimally. The bank had the right technology platform and delivery mechanism, but the overall implementation of the environment was the issue.

ICG immediately began a project to stabilize and optimize the environment and applications. We re-implemented and/or reconfigured all components of the bank’s VMware and Citrix platforms. We completely overhauled their Citrix/VDI environment. During the process we identified that all thin clients would need to be replaced; ICG assisted in that selection and deployed new thin clients to all locations using a phased approach. In addition to addressing infrastructure concerns, we also took a hands-on approach to understand how end-users interacted with the environment and their applications. A secure and stable environment is one thing, but if all applications were misconfigured, instability would continue. ICG is an application company and our team developed, implemented, and tested these applications in the new VDI environment. This holistic approach ensured success and created minimal disruption to the bank's operations during the process.

The Outcome

Upon completing the implementation process, the bank experienced virtually no unplanned outages for the next 36+ months, leading to a secure, stable, and well-maintained and supported platform. Their newly implemented VDI environment achieved stability, boosting end-user satisfaction through the roof. A vital aspect of the solution involved onboarding ICG Managed Services for the VDI/Citrix environment, delivering world-class support and administration for the VDI platform and their applications. ICG is a pioneer in VDI and we have a dedicated team around VDI and virtual desktop delivery. From the SMB to the enterprise, we excel in architecting VDI environments to reduce costs, optimize delivery of applications, and streamline scalability. The bank enjoys a high customer satisfaction rating, stability, and peace of mind now that their desktops and applications are always there when they need them.