For ensuring a comprehensive solution to various inadequacies in its desktop environment, DIAL opted for VMware’s VDI solution.
By Jasmine Desai
Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) is a joint venture between GMR Group, Airports Authority of India, and Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB). In January 2006, the consortium was awarded the concession to operate, manage and develop the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) in Delhi. IGIA is the busiest airport in India and looks set to maintain its position thanks to ongoing development projects.
DIAL employs around 1,500 people, nearly half of whom use desktop computers. Of these, the majority are permanent members of staff working in areas such as finance, human resource (HR), airport security, baggage handling and air traffic control. A small number are employed on short-term contracts, working mainly on specific projects, often involving airport construction.
Regardless of the role, each employee relies on the firm’s IT infrastructure to provide stable access to key applications. The applications that support airport processes such as check-in, baggage handling and traffic control are managed by the DIAL IT team. However, DIAL parent company GMR Group is responsible for business solutions such as SAP and Microsoft Dynamics NAV, as well as the DIAL Microsoft Exchange email environment.
VDI vortex
GMR Group virtualized the servers at its main data centre with VMware vSphere to improve IT performance. The transformation paved the way for further virtualization projects across all business units. Following the virtualization of the main data centre, the GMR Group asked DIAL to study virtualization as a way of tackling inefficiencies around its desktop environment.
IP Rao, Chief Executive Officer, DIAL, says “We were excited to be entrusted with the responsibility of rolling out the virtual desktop initiative at DIAL. The success of the project was a matter of prestige as well as challenge for DIAL, as it would pave the way for similar replication of technology across the group.”
At DIAL, it could take up to two days to provision desktops for a DIAL employee, and GMR Group considered this too long to support new recruits or employees moving between teams. Furthermore, the turnaround time could be an additional two days if the request included deployment of a legacy application. Davesh Shukla, CIO, DIAL says, “These applications were outsourced to a service provider and we had to contact the company to complete the installation. It often meant more time was required because the service provider had to schedule an engineer to come on-site and do the work.”
DIAL had other concerns. They saw that critical project data was stored locally on desktops. There was a constant risk that work could be delayed if a file was accidentally wiped or a local hard drive failed.
Shukla of DIAL adds, “It was crucial to establish backup policies for our desktops to eliminate the risk of data loss. I wanted us to have greater control over the data that’s driving the expansion of the airport.” Indeed, airport expansion was a major concern for DIAL. He could see that the existing infrastructure of 655 desktops was already consuming significant amounts of electricity, and the figure would continue to rise as the environment expanded. What’s more, a larger desktop infrastructure would mean even more time spent on desk-side support visits.
Mr Shukla comments, “Energy consumption was a big worry. But I was equally worried about supporting an expanded desktop infrastructure with our current resources IT administrators already spent a large proportion of their time responding to tickets for desktop support.”
DIAL counts on VMware
DIAL team talked to VMware and subsequently began working with VMware Professional Services to design a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) pilot for 25 IT administrators based on VMware Horizon View. Apart from VMware, DIAL also evaluated Citrix, but ended up zeroing in on VMware due its existing install-base and strong key stakeholders mapping. After the success of the pilot, DIAL extended the infrastructure to support its entire desktop estate.
The VMware team worked with Dell on building back-end platform of Dell PowerEdge coupled with Dell Wyse P25 zero clients, complete with monitors and keyboards. With the VDI, DIAL has addressed all the issues it faced with the previous desktops. The risk of delaying projects has been significantly reduced because data is no longer stored locally it’s held centrally on the servers dedicated to the VDI and backed up on a daily basis to ensure business continuity. Applications virtualized through this initiative are SAP Financial Accounting module, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Office.
By virtualizing the company’s standard software image and deploying it to the Dell Wyse clients using Horizon View, the IT team can quickly and easily install and maintain the image. “Previously, we needed around two days to update desktops. With Horizon View, it’s completed in no more than two hours. As a result, we’ve drastically reduced disruption to operations because users gain faster access to our back-office applications,” says Vivek Chandra, AGM of IT.
Users often change roles during projects and it used to be challenging to accommodate these changes. “Today, it’s simple. The enhanced image management tools of Horizon allow access to software and applications instantly. We can rapidly deploy the standard VDI image across the client infrastructure and we have minimised the storage required for maintaining software images. In turn, this has significantly reduced our costs of buying and managing physical storage hardware.” The VDI infrastructure not only lowers costs, but it also helps the IT team work proactively.
According to Shukla of DIAL, “The IT team uses an evaluation version of VMware vCenter Operations Manager for View to monitor performance across the infrastructure, allowing us to react before the service is affected. We have gained a deep insight into the operations of our desktop environment, which will help us maximise the value of our VDI.”
The benefits are obvious, the number of help-desk calls are falling fast. Chandra estimates that the number of support calls will have halved by the first 12 months of deployment. He says that DIAL is getting better performance at a lower cost through the VDI now in place. For instance, the spend on desktops will drop because the zero-client infrastructure has a longer life cycle. In addition, centrally storing data has made it easier to manage software inventory and eliminate unnecessary licenses.
Along with these savings, Shukla predicts that the TCO for the desktop infrastructure will drop by 50 % over the next 5 years. This figure takes into account the benefits of centralising data and simplifying day-to-day management on clients. The maintenance costs will be lower for the virtualized infrastructure.
“Provisioning desktops in two hours rather than two days represents a time and cost saving,” he says. Furthermore, DIAL is expecting to see a drop in energy consumption. “In terms of energy efficiency, our VMware-based VDI will perform much better than our previous PC infrastructure.
DIAL expects to see a rapid return on investment. “We are proud to be the first airport in India to adopt VDI. The project is seen as a major achievement at the GMR Group level,” concludes IP Rao, CEO, DIAL.
