Swiss Government Centralizes Desktop Infrastructure With Double-Take Flex

Double-Take Software, Inc. announced that the Swiss Government has centralised the provisioning and management of its desktop systems for Federal Departments worldwide using virtual desktop solution Double-Take Flex.

The Government’s desktop environment supports users in more than 200 worldwide locations, including embassies, airports, border stations and police departments. The project was developed and managed by IT service provider ISC in collaboration with Siemens Switzerland Ltd.

Double-Take Flex provides a highly secure client system for desktops across the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, the Federal Office for Migration, the Federal Office of Police and the Swiss Federal Customs Administration. It improves the level of centralised control over the organisation’s desktop infrastructure while also reducing the time and expense of desktop provisioning and management.

Double-Take Flex allows multiple workstations to boot from one central operating system image, located on a central storage device which can be either a server, iSCSI SAN or NAS. For the Swiss Government, this may involve provisioning up to 20 workstations per site, with over 1,000 desktop systems in total worldwide being supported. The Double-Take Flex servers within the offices are then managed centrally by ISC.

With Double-Take Flex, desktops can run Microsoft Windows 7, XP Pro, or Vista without the need for a local hard drive. This approach improves desktop security and management, while users retain the same experience they had with their previous PC environments.

"With Double-Take Flex we have designed and delivered a virtual desktop platform that meets the needs of the Swiss Government offices in a way that is simple to manage and extremely cost-effective. The solution ensures a uniform and secure configuration for all Swiss Government desktop systems worldwide," said Sanjin Goglia, project manager at Siemens Switzerland Ltd. "We implement only one uniform image for all users, and therefore know exactly what is running and what is not."

Olivier Cohen, EMEA sales director at Double-Take Software commented: "Organisations looking at desktop virtualisation and centralised management are really after three things: better control over endpoints, reduced cost of ownership and ease of use for their employees. With Double-Take Flex, each desktop session is based on a single master image that can be managed centrally, providing the required level of control and administration at a competitive price point and without compromising the user experience."