Boosting employee productivity, reducing storage costs and improving performance

Instead of a prohibitively expensive traditional Storage Area Network (SAN), the council implemented Atlantis SDS, cut its operational costs in half and login time by 10x. The new system offered consistent high performance, improving mobile employee workforce productivity. Bath and North East Somerset Council also selected Atlantis for its simplicity, cost effectiveness and scalability.

Bath and North East Somerset Council delivers public services to more than 176,000 people. It faced immense pressure to reduce operating costs whilst delivering better local community services. With a new administrative headquarters being built, the council chose to overhaul its entire IT infrastructure by deploying a new VDI solution. It needed a storage solution to support 1,500 virtual desktops, running over two datacenters and over 30 terabytes of data.

The council opted for the Atlantis SDS solution because it was scalable, flexible and delivered year-on-year savings. It also lowered the council’s carbon footprint due to the reduced power and cooling requirements needed to support the SDS solution. It now has a consistent high-performance desktop environment, across all of its sites, which enables mobile employees to work productively from any location, ultimately boosting the quality of the council’s services. At 50 percent lower cost than traditional storage, Atlantis reduced the council’s entire projected storage capital expenditure.

Atlantis software was deployed to underpin the virtual desktops being installed at the council’s new administrative headquarters, and throughout five other main offices and 70 remote sites. The scalable solution allows the council to run 1,500 concurrent virtual desktops using its existing attached storage, saving the cost of purchasing additional storage. It has also reduced storage management time, saving the council more than 100 hours a year.

Leighton Ballard, IT Projects Manager at Bath and North East Somerset Council, said: “We are proud of our VDI deployment achievements. In the past, employees frequently reported ten-minute log in times. The Atlantis SDS solution provides consistent, faster-than-PC performance, near-instant application launch and super-fast login times due to the virtualised storage. Atlantis software has helped the council operate more cost effectively and deliver more efficient services for citizens.”

David Cumberworth, Vice President of Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Atlantis Computing, concluded: “Bath and North East Somerset Council has transformed its IT goals. The organisation now has a consistent high performance desktop environment, across all of its sites, which enables employees to work productively from any office, from home and out in the field. Atlantis technology is the perfect solution to underpin the council’s services while reducing long-term costs and simplifying the management of the storage infrastructure.”