Government Agency - VDI Solution for a Government Agency

Client

The customer was a US State government agency that needed to provide remote access to a set of applications for more than 3,000 new hires. The State was looking for a rapid, cost-effective solution with Enterprise-grade Security, High Availability, and Disaster Recovery.

Challenges

• The solution, deployment, testing, and production deployment had to be completed within two weeks.
• VDI environment had to be optimized for specific applications, e.g., PBS apps.
• The customer needed the solution to support different endpoint devices, including Windows, Linux, Android computers, tablets, and smartphones.
• Customers required role-based user access to the applications. Multiple groups of users needed access to a predefined set of applications.
• The users need to be blocked from reaching external URLs, except the approved ones in the list.

Solution

• We chose Microsoft Azure WVD after reviewing the requirements and performing a cost analysis.
• Based on the workload analysis and estimation, optimal types of VMs were selected for virtual desktops. Microsoft provided best practices, guidance, and materials for that estimation.
• We created scripts for managing users and propagating changes from Active Directory to Azure WVD. The scripts also supported the mass management of the users.
• Windows AppLocker was configured to deny unapproved applications from running.

Value

• The solution has met the customer’s rigorous requirements of high availability and reliability.
• Significantly reduced the cost compared to the traditional approach.
• Security on platforms and applications has surpassed customers’ expectations.
• The customer had control over the Azure WVD users from centralized Azure AD.
• Extremely difficult timelines were efficiently met.