The outlook is good for the Trier-Saarburg administrative district in southwest Germany: above-average growth rates, low unemployment and a good infrastructure characterize this historic administrative district, geographically the third largest in Rhineland Palatinate, with around 140,000 inhabitants. In order for this to remain the case, the district's administrative authorities, which comprise seven collective municipalities with four towns and 99 local municipalities, are looking for efficient IT management using state-of-the-art desktops.


Thin clients replace out-of-date PCs

As part of a wide-ranging modernization project, the district council will be providing all of its 300 IT users with the latest in IT workstation technology. Old PCs will be replaced with power and space saving thin clients. By the end of 2007, conventional PCs should account for just five percent of all computer workstations. The new infrastructure is a way of boosting the district council's image as a service provider for its approx. 140,000 citizens and also forms the basis for overseeing its many facilities. At the end of 2005, around 200 PCs with Windows NT were still being used in-house, involving ever increasing administrative expenses for the IT team as well as frequent service call-outs: "Aside from the numerous hardware outages, a particular problem for us was dealing with the individual software environment of the PCs. We deploy in excess of 90 business solutions, which all had to be managed and updated individually in their respective combinations on each workstation. The situation was further aggravated by the increasing need to renew supplementary software solutions, such as MS Office 97, which in turn led to the formation of workstation islands. Ultimately we had to decide whether to create more such islands or instigate wholesale change and migrate to an infrastructure that is easy to manage“, explains Georg Barthen, a system administrator at the Trier-Saarburg district council.

The customer Trier-Saarburg administrative district four towns and 99 local municipalities 140,000 citizens

Help at hand in the form of server-based computing

The migration to thin clients is part of an overall migration to server-based computing. Since 2006, old servers used for data warehousing and backup have been gradually replaced with terminal servers offering centralized operation, management and updating of all business and office applications. The thin clients give staff user-dependent access to the district council's applications. Gone are the days when computing power and storage capacity were distributed and left for the most part languishing unused near desks. They are now concentrated instead in the computing center, where they can be implemented and protected much more efficiently. The first Citrix terminal servers were deployed by the IT team in early 2004 for the centralized provision of frequently used solutions. The decision to gradually migrate to server-based computing incorporating thin clients was made in 2005. Georg Barthen conducted a comprehensive series of tests to evaluate over 30 thin client models from six different providers. The contract was finally awarded to the Bremen-based manufacturer IGEL Technology in April 2006. The management solution from the German market leader offered the best combination of power with low administration overhead.


High degree of flexibility, uniform management

The standard model used by the district council is the IGEL 3210 LX Compact. Together with its predecessor models, it is used across the board and makes a variety of peripheral devices available such as external DVD-ROMs, floppy disk drives or SD card readers for digital photos. Scanners with a TWAIN interface are a separate issue and for cost reasons, old XP PCs will still be used here. In the long term, however, it will be possible to use thin clients, possibly in the form of XPe clients. They enable Windows XP-compatible programs, like the scanner software, to be installed locally by the administrator in the firmware of the devices via a free memory area and operated locally on a permanent basis.

The IGEL solution also offered the option of converting PCs that are not quite ready to be taken out of service: IT experts at the district council used 50 IGEL TC cards to transform former fat clients into secure IGEL thin clients. "The cost-effective IGEL 5200 TC card is connected to the IDE port instead of the hard drive. This allows us to continue using the PCs whilst minimizing errors and, as with the real thin clients, conduct uniform remote management from anywhere in the network using the IGEL Remote Management Suite. In view of the enormous potential savings, we are hoping for a thin client quota of 95% by the end of 2007“, says Georg Barthen.

The challenge over 90 business solutions in total fast roll-outs due to restricted time slots thin client quota of 95%

Digital services help make savings

A further strength and thus argument in favor of IGEL according to Georg Barthen was the high potential for device consolidation and the multiple value added services of the IGEL solution. These so-called digital services from IGEL are made available to their customers with the firmware at no extra cost. For instance, IGEL models can be used as print servers amongst other things. "This highly practical function saves us additional hardware“, says a satisfied source from the district council. "In the event of a printer failure, users can simply turn to a different network printer. This works so well that we are considering transferring this task exclusively to the IGEL thin clients.“ And there is yet further consolidation potential on the horizon: "The IGEL models offer a special digital service for thin client IP telephony whereby a standard headset can be used to convert the thin clients into smart phones in future. Whether it will always be possible to do away with a conventional telephone, however, depends essentially on the level of user acceptance.“ Just as promising are the smartcard readers, integrated as standard, which the district council is considering for authentification solutions.


Gradual migration with rapid roll-out

So far, 15 offices in three divisions have changed over to thin client operation. The new computing infrastructure comprises eight terminal servers that run under Windows Server 2003 and Citrix Presentation Server 4. The 170 or so thin clients, 50 PC clients with IGEL TC cards and 25 PCs operated as fat clients are connected to the server farm via LAN, microwave radio relay and 2 Mb/s leased lines. Different migration tools enable the IGEL management solution to achieve extremely rapid roll-outs, something that is absolutely essential for Georg Barthen: "Some offices give us only a very small time frame, perhaps just one day in a particular calendar week. We aim to process one or two offices a day and our 4-strong team needs just half a day for hardware replacement and user training. The other half of the day is then devoted to system optimization. We have invested around 55 man-days in setting up and configuring the first 170 thin clients in three different locations. The migration to server-based computing was intended specifically to put an end to antiquated practices. We are changing over to a completely new domain and making a clean break with the old in favor of a brand new, highly efficient infrastructure with new domain controllers and terminal servers that allow the time-efficient central management of software and hardware. Switching off the
old domains completes the consolidation phase.“

The solution fundamental migration to server-based computing approximately 170 thin clients, 50 PC clients with IGEL TC cards and 25 PCs operated as fat clients varying digital services such as Citrix ICA, print server function and VoIP

Rapid response to future changes

It is not only the IT team, but also the users at the Trier-Saarburg district council who are pleased with the new thin
client solution. "People are now actively requesting thin clients because they are much smaller and quieter. We administrators can now respond quickly to new requirements such as, for example, staff relocation and reassignment. Whereas in the old days this would have involved hours of PC installation work, now simply configuring a new group assignment in the Active Directory Service brings both the individual workstation and access to all specific applications online immediately. Since such processes are recurrent and ultimately a matter of routine, internal service quality has also greatly improved. We are very pleased with this cost-conscious yet efficient solution.“