Law firm William Fry has rolled out a desktop virtualisation network across 380 workers in a move enabled by a migration to Windows 7.
William Fry is one of the top 5 law firms in Ireland. Its clients include many of the leading global and domestic companies operating in Ireland, Irish Government bodies, financial institutions and entrepreneurs.
“William Fry is a great example of a company using desktop virtualisation to enable its upwardly mobile workforce to operate in a consistent and efficient way no matter where or how they are accessing their data,” Michael O’Hara, managing director, DataSolutions, explained.
The law firm made the decision to implement Citrix XenDesktop to continue the work it was already doing with Citrix and move to a fully virtual desktop infrastructure. William Fry now runs all of its essential applications on XenDesktop, including its billing applications, document management, practice management systems, CRM and email.
The ease of use and the ability to roll out upgrades quickly was a key factor in William Fry’s decision to implement XenDesktop. Major application implementations and upgrades are managed centrally and can be provisioned to users in just two minutes, giving users the latest tools without the disruptions of traditional update processes.
Centralised management
The centralised delivery, management and control of its users’ desktops creates great efficiencies for the IT department. With more than 380 users in Ireland, the IT department can trouble shoot any issue at one location, freeing up resources and saving both time and, money.
“The overall business benefits Citrix brings to William Fry are immense,” said Michael Devitt, IT manager, William Fry. “It gives us flexibility, a consistent desktop, one that we can deploy very quickly, and allows us to upgrade very quickly to Windows 7, which was one of the main reasons we invested in XenDesktop.
“The firm’s main goal is to provide client services of the highest quality and to do so in a secure and confidential manner. Our solicitors need to be able to provide information to our clients regardless of when they submit a request. XenDesktop ensures we can continue to do just that in the most secure and confidential manner that is expected of us by our clients.
“By standardising the quality of service for all our users, no matter where they are has lead to significant benefits in terms of productivity and employee satisfaction.”
As a legal firm, security and compliance are of the highest priority for William Fry. With XenDesktop, William Fry doesn’t need to worry about encrypting every laptop and device that is coming in and going out of the company. All the information is held centrally and users gain access through a Citrix Access Gateway which ensures the highest levels of confidentiality and data protection to remote users. The law firm also uses Citrix Access Gateway in collaboration with a third-party software called PINSafe, which gives second form factor authentication.
“By providing a consistent secure desktop either at home, in the office or while travelling around the world, any organisation can enable their employees to work productively and quickly support customers or clients with whatever they need whenever they need it,” said Niall Gilmore, country manager, Ireland, Citrix Systems.
Pictured: Michael Devitt, IT manager, William Fry; with Dermot Glynn, technical director, Enterprise Solutions
