Over 24,000 employees, 250 branches and an EUR 595m turnover (2004) make Randstad Germany the leading recruitment agency in Germany. In addition to traditional temporary work, the company’s established service portfolio includes outsourcing, recruitment and in-house solutions, and is able to fulfil even sector-specific staffing requirements.

Migration to Server-based Computing
The decision to undertake a fundamental modernisation of the national IT infrastructure was taken in September 2004. Some 240 sites with local client-server networks were previously networked with the SAP computer centre in a star topology. From there, the branches used a broadband connection to the Service Centre in Eschborn to access the Intranet, Internet and mail system. Data was stored and backed up locally. “The upcoming investment to replace our obsolete servers and workstations gave us the opportunity to fundamentally redesign our IT architecture,” recalls Christiane Trenkler, responsible for IT operations at Randstad Germany. “We had a wide variety of requirements. Firstly we wanted to migrate the technical infrastructure of the sales organisation to central applications, and secondly we wanted to increase the availability and flexibility of the system as a whole. Furthermore, we wanted to relieve the sales organisation of the burden of IT work and permanently reduce IT costs.” The “Kopernikus” project identified a Server-based Computing infrastructure with Citrix Presentation Server 3.0 as the best solution. Where previously there were 300 servers, this has been reduced to a total of 68 including six test servers.

The customer 24,000 employees, 250 branches and an EUR 595m turnover (2004) make Randstad Germany the leading recruitment agency in Germany In addition to traditional temporary work, the company’s established service portfolio includes outsourcing, recruitment and in-house solutions

Thin client-based workstation environment
In addition to a new WAN and SAN concept, the new infrastructure design also entailed a migration from workstation PCs to Thin Clients. “Only the use of Thin Clients releases the full potential of Server-based Computing,” explains Christiane Trenkler. Following a careful test phase with different models from various manufacturers in the industry, the project team opted for the IGEL 3200 LX Compact, making a deliberate choice in favour of the Linux version of the space-saving and visually attractive terminal from the German manufacturer IGEL Technology. “We wanted to use the open-source operating system to make ourselves independent of Windows from the outset,” explains Christiane Trenkler. “The XP machines we tested seemed to us to be functionally too close to a PC. We wanted an intuitive and easy-to-use terminal with all the functions that are important to us, no more, no less.”

Since March 2005 around 1500 IGEL thin clients have been using the ICA protocol to communicate with the central application servers in Eschborn. All Office and e-mail applications, web browsers and tools such as zip or Acrobat are stored and maintained centrally there. Some 300 laptops and the remaining PCs with special applications are also connected to the fleet of terminal servers via ICA client.

The challenge Sales organisation technical infrastructure to be migrated to central applications Increased availability and flexibility of the system as a whole Sales organisation to be relieved of the burden of IT work and permanent reduction in IT costs

Greater flexibility and availability
“Our analysis showed that Thin Clients always perform better than workstation PCs in terms of reliability and security, even when working with images or hard disk locks. Viruses and other malware have almost no way of spreading across Thin Clients without hard disks and the service life of the machines is seven to eight years, compared with the usual three years for a PC.
We are also considering a smart card application for the future, and the IGEL machines have an integral smart card reader as standard.”

According to the IT Manager, the reduction in administration costs brought about by the use of Thin Clients also manifests itself particularly clearly in conjunction with updates or security patches. “In the past we had to update every PC individually, now we can implement all the updates centrally. The IGEL Remote Management Suite supplied with the machines even allows to schedule the firmware updates as well as to execute them automatically.”

The new central data storage allows the employees’ individual workstations to be designed much more flexibly. “Employees log in to their new Thin Client workstation and immediately see their specific desktop on their screen. Individual access rights can be changed with just a few clicks.” Configuration for the branches has also become easier for Christiane Trenkler and her team. “We no longer need to pre-configure any hardware. We simply send new IGEL thin clients through the post and our staff in the branches connect them themselves. Once our internal Service Centre has assigned rights, the workstation is ready for use.”

Acceptance concerns unfounded
Initial concerns about the acceptance among users have proven to be unfounded, says Christiane Trenkler. “We made every effort from the outset to ensure that the migration was as smooth as possible for our employees. Our goal was to achieve the migration with no staff training whatsoever, and our hopes were fulfilled. Many employees picked up their work quite naturally without even looking at the specially-written manual.” The Citrix Program Neighborhood function was used to design the user interfaces to look exactly like the familiar PC user interface. For example, all open applications appear in the taskbar as before. “The combination of the IGEL 3200 Compact and a Samsung SyncMaster 17” TFT screen had a very positive effect on acceptance,” recalls Christiane Trenkler. “Furthermore, we distributed a small cuddly hedgehog (“Igel” means hedgehog in German) to every workstation. Many of our colleagues immediately took that mascot to their hearts which gave them a highly personal relationship to their workstation.”

The solution Installation of 1500 IGEL 3200 LX Compact thin clients with a Server-based Computing infrastructure based on Citrix Presentation Server 3.0 Reduction from 300 servers to a total of 68 including six test servers Cost reductions of around 50% in systems management, user helpdesk and maintenance

Conversion and savings as planned
The Kopernikus project was divided into three main phases. The new SAN and the Citrix server fleet live environment were designed and the configuration for the IGEL thin clients was developed at the beginning of December 2004. The four-week pilot phase was launched in three test branches in February 2005 and was followed by the final roll-out. The mirrored SAN and the Citrix server fleet including load balancing were installed in two separate fire areas of a housing partner. The project was completed on schedule in June 2005. The former outsourcing partner and server-side hardware supplier IBM was involved in the design, and the roll-out, including moves and repairs, was implemented by Randstad’s local IT partner of many years, Sotec. “With the valuable support of our partners, we were able to complete the project “just in time”,” says Christiane Trenkler. “Moreover we were able to achieve all the improvements and savings that we were striving for in the design phase to our complete satisfaction. The cost reductions in systems management and user helpdesk are around 50% and maintenance costs have also halved.” The new solution has reduced hardware investment at Randstad Germany by 20%, and only around 85% of the previous costs are incurred for moves and the opening of new branches. “Our new infrastructure has significantly improved performance, availability and handling of our IT environment,” concludes Christiane Trenkler. “IT has found a new and expedient place. Our branches do not have to deal with any unnecessary IT work and, thanks to IGEL, we can count on an efficient and reliable computing infrastructure.”