Government agencies, like many other organizations, are currently facing challenges related to modernizing their IT infrastructures. This especially concerns the need to adapt to growing security requirements and to provide remote work flexibility for employees. Consequently, migrating to modern application virtualization platforms becomes an essential step in optimizing and securing the operations of government agencies.

Challenge 

The client had a dispersed application virtualization environment across Poland. The previously used platform, Citrix MetaFrame, served as the main access medium for employees of the Office to access certain applications (over a thousand service recipients). Due to the growing technological debt and emerging challenges in adapting the platform to the new type of applications and security guidelines, the decision was made to migrate the platform to the latest version.

An additional challenge for Hawatel was to design a solution that would securely enable connections to virtualized applications from outside the organization (over the Internet) from various end-user devices (e.g., workstations, mobile devices).

Solution

Our first step was to conduct an audit of the current state of the environment. Then, based on the analysis of the gathered material and familiarizing ourselves with the requirements for the implementation results, we decided to develop a new, highly available, and scalable architecture for the platform based on the Citrix Virtual Apps & Desktop product.

Considering specific security requirements, we also proposed transitioning to the latest method of communication encryption between components of the Citrix platform.

We decided to opt for a transparent migration method, as it does not impact the ongoing work of end-users.

Outcomes

As part of the project, we implemented Citrix Virtual Apps & Desktop in a distributed architecture across several locations. This architecture ensures high availability of the platform and the applications published through it. We also virtualized over several dozen internally used applications and implemented a module for proactive monitoring of the environment's state. We initiated a mechanism to scan end-user devices for compliance with the organization's security policies.

Furthermore, the platform enables remote work for office employees from any device and location worldwide. A particularly helpful feature for the management is the flexible delegation of permissions, complementing remote work. It allows for the transfer of certain permissions to administrators from various branches of the institution.

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