regio iT

Municipal IT Service Provider regio iT Paves the Way for Innovation with VMware Horizon

The Aachen-based IT service provider regio iT is putting an end to the era of traditional work models. With the goal of supporting public institutions and schools in their digital transformation and transition to mobile and flexible work, the company relies on a modern platform based on a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). To ensure the secure delivery of virtual desktops and applications, regio iT uses VMware Horizon. In this way, the company helps municipal institutions tackle many of the challenges of digital transformation, such as the Online Access Act and e-learning in the education sector. This enables regio iT to expand its portfolio, and customers benefit from greater efficiency, productivity, and more motivated employees.

regio iT: Responsibility – Care – Reliability

Regio iT Gesellschaft für Informationstechnologie mbH stands for responsibility, care, and reliability. Headquartered in Aachen, it is the largest municipal IT service provider for public sector clients such as municipalities, schools, utility companies, energy and waste management companies, and non-profit organizations in North Rhine-Westphalia. Regio iT was founded in 2003 through the merger of the City of Aachen and the Aachen municipal utilities with the goal of creating a joint IT company. At three locations, regio iT employs approximately 640 people who support over 44,000 clients and more than 270 schools and school administrations. The company participates in research and development projects as well as nationwide initiatives on new technologies to drive emerging trends for its clients. Regio iT is particularly at the forefront of topics such as intelligent platforms and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Experience, a spirit of innovation, and a commitment to service —regio iT as the ideal partner

Digitalization is advancing at a breakneck pace worldwide. In particular, it poses major challenges for Germany’s public sector and educational institutions: increasing competition, immense market dynamics, and new requirements and regulations. The problem is that advanced IT solutions are needed that go beyond already established standard IT services. This applies above all to the field of eGovernment and the Online Access Act, which is intended to enable citizens to access administrative services digitally. In addition to digitalization, the global COVID-19 pandemic has presented new challenges for the public sector, the utilities and waste management sectors, and educational institutions. Political decisions led to employees being sent to work from home, and secure remote work had to be enabled—overnight. In the education sector in particular, the closure of schools marked a turning point that highlighted just how far behind they are in terms of digitization. Video lessons, e-learning platforms, and mobile devices for teachers and students—all of these were available only in a rudimentary form, and the issue of data protection often remained unresolved.

regio iT is particularly forward-thinking in the field of education and focuses on modern e-learning platforms. To implement these in a wide variety of institutions, the municipal IT service provider needs a modern IT platform. In addition, many of regio iT’s clients work with highly sensitive data that requires a high level of security. regio iT offers the right information technology for every type of school and develops customized software solutions tailored to each institution’s specific needs.

Virtual Desktops as the Key to Modern Work

The Aachen-based IT service provider has a long history of collaboration with VMware: Since 2009, regio iT has relied on server virtualization with VMware vSphere. The reason for this decision was VMware’s position as the market leader in virtualization. The company has been using the VMware Horizon VDI platform on-premises since 2016 and has since issued approximately 3,000 licenses—a number that will rise to 4,500 in the near future. The company has been working with its partner, PROFI Engineering Systems AG, since 2018. PROFI AG had developed a concept for the digital workplace, compared various solutions, and recommended VMware. Since then, PROFI specialists have been supporting regio iT, advising on further development, and implementing new initiatives. In this way, PROFI enables regio iT to support municipal institutions in overcoming many of the challenges of digitalization. In addition, PROFI is the contracted partner for the procurement of VMware licenses.

“regio iT uses the VMware Horizon-based virtual desktop infrastructure itself to provide our customers with the best possible experience —and we are very satisfied.”

Klaus Fetzer, CIO of regio IT

regio iT has now achieved a virtualization rate of 85 percent. And the collaboration is going well—so well, in fact, that regio iT itself uses VMware’s virtual desktop infrastructure. Klaus Fetzer, CIO and Technical Director, who is responsible for all of regio iT’s IT services, emphasizes this as well: “We use the same solutions internally that we offer our customers. That’s why we adopted and tested the VMware Horizon-based VDI early on. This gives us a wealth of experience that helps us win over our customers.” In addition, regio iT currently uses VMware Premier Support.

With the help of these solutions, the IT service provider has been able to drive the increasingly important topic of the modern workplace and establish it in industries that had previously clung firmly to familiar, traditional work models. Mobility, flexibility, availability, and security are the key drivers for a virtual desktop infrastructure—topics that are of great importance in the public sector and educational institutions.

Lower costs and greater benefits – the implementation of VDI

VMware Horizon is a modern platform for the secure delivery of virtual desktops and applications – the ideal solution for digital workplaces. The technology supports the scaling of virtual desktops via a central control plane and enables access from various endpoint types, such as laptops, PCs, smartphones, or tablets with different operating systems like Windows, iOS, or Android. The “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) concept is generating significant interest both internally at regio iT and among its customers. Until recently, this was practically unthinkable, especially in public administration.

The ability to work using a personal or company-owned device eliminates the need for a physical workspace. This new flexibility is a major advantage, especially for the younger generation, and leads to greater productivity and higher motivation among both customers and employees. Oliver Hell, Product Manager at regio iT, illustrates this point: “Thanks to the VDI solution, any application can be securely accessed from any device and any location.” The company and its customer base now benefit from secure and efficient mobile work. At the same time, sensitive data is protected, and compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG) is ensured—an important consideration, especially for the public sector.

The new infrastructure also plays into the cost picture, as centralized management yields customer support savings of approximately 15 percent per workstation. “Traditional on-site support involves restarting or updating a PC at the customer’s location: This is hardly necessary anymore, since VDI allows us to operate independently of the device,” emphasizes Oliver Hell. “We handle this from the backend with a small team of three people and are able to provide zero-touch deployment—which results in massive savings.” In addition, a VDI solution also reduces costs compared to the VPN previously used. Thanks to VMware Horizon, regio iT can offer a modern VDI solution even to smaller and decentralized customers. Today, regio iT can provision a large number of workstations at the push of a button. Even operating system upgrades—such as from Windows 7 to Windows 10—are completed in no time thanks to the VMware platform—without requiring a regio iT employee to be on-site.

Thanks to modern IT, regio iT can support its public-sector clients in the areas of e-learning and the Online Access Act: an important investment in the digital future of the school system and public administration in Germany. regio iT also contributes to greater sustainability through VMware Horizon. Thanks to innovative virtualization technology at customer sites, CO2 savings can be achieved, which is particularly important for public sector institutions that must meet specific sustainability requirements. The transition to next-generation hardware ensures that devices and power supplies are becoming smaller and smaller and require less electricity—with positive effects on the carbon footprint.

The Future Is Mobile Work

When it comes to digital transformation, there’s no end in sight—quite the opposite. The year 2020, in particular, has shown just how well location-independent work functions when backed by the right technology. regio iT plans to expand its collaboration with VMware in the future to further develop the Modern Workplace—with a focus on VMware Workspace ONE and application virtualization. The goal is to continue supporting the public sector with state-of-the-art, customized mobile workplace solutions.