LeasePlan is a Gurgaon-based vehicle leasing and fleet management company with nearly 9,500 vehicles. It faced the problem of a growing number of users connecting to LeasePlan applications through various devices (PDAs, laptops, office desktops) and through the Internet. Also, remote access had to be strictly based on different roles and the responsibilities the users were entrusted with.

Given the nature of LeasePlan's business of providing transport solutions to customers on a real time basis across the country, the company was exploring the possibility of having secured connectivity. Greater business efficiency was the need of the hour in a highly competitive environment. With sales, customer support and operations requiring connectivity to business applications like Elvis (JD Edwards-based ERP) and Lotus Notes Mailing & Midas (CRM) anytime and anywhere, the demand for faster and more flexible access kept increasing.

LeasePlan's IT department wanted trouble-free IT operations at all office locations with all IT systems centrally managed at the corporate office. Multiple devices needed to be connected to the network. Also, remote access had to be strictly based on different roles and the responsibilities the users were entrusted with. Another challenge was LeasePlan's statutory compliance as per the Dutch Central Bank law.

LeasePlan India zeroed in on the Citrix Access Suite for Centralized Application Management-a solution featuring Citrix Presentation Server and Citrix Access Gateway with Microsoft Windows Server 2003 running on five IBM x346 servers at the datacenter housed in the company's headquarters in Gurgaon.

Hundred users at six locations across the country (Gurgaon, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata) now access centrally hosted applications. The telecom service provider for the MPLS VPN solution was VSNL. Using Citrix Presentation Server, all branches are connected with virtualized access to applications ranging from Microsoft Office to the more complex JD Edwards ERP.

LeasePlan India was able to control access based on whether people connect from company laptops or from home PCs, as well as on the basis of their roles and responsibilities. Actions taken with each application could also be controlled. The access gateway allowed users to use a public network, such as the Internet, with a high level of security. All information was safely protected within the datacenter while maintaining its accessibility from anywhere.

As a result of hosting applications centrally using Citrix Presentation Server and providing virtualized access instead of installing applications on client devices, LeasePlan now does not need upgraded clients or new PCs. It has efficiently deployed all legacy clients and has not purchased any hardware for the past two years.

LeasePlan could centrally deploy all security patches, antivirus software, etc, on the servers instead of on the clients. This enabled LeasePlan India to manage all IT functions from its central location. Most importantly, there are no IT support personnel at any of the branches. The solution provides greater visibility by the IT team into user activity, system performance and capacity. With centralized application publishing, patch management has become a breeze, not to mention that new applications can be deployed faster.

Sudesh Prasad
sudeshp@cybermedia.co.in

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