"Parallels RAS is a complete and secure solution. It’s very easy to set up and manage. It’s flexible, cost-effective, easy to use, and supports almost every endpoint device. On top of all that, their support is excellent."

Henk Nachtegaal
Founder and CEO

The ChallengeA new efficient solution that could be seamlessly integrated into their pre-existing system.

Effect ICT has many small and medium-sized business (SMB) customers that require personalized settings and quick changes in their system’s configurations.

With many customers requiring granular control, the Effect ICT IT staff needed an efficient solution that could process complex tasks and adapt their system to meet their clients’ requirements.

The TestWhich solution can reduce costs and overall system complexity?

As the competition became more aggressive, Effect ICT’s margins started to erode.

Increasing the final price on their solutions would have lost their market share, so Effect ICT started actively looking for an alternative that could reduce their total cost of ownership (TCO) and complexity.

The SolutionParallels RAS chosen for seamless delivery, desktop management, and remote assistance for their customers.

After careful consideration, Henk Nachtegaal, the CEO of Effect ICT, decided to implement Parallels RAS to provide a more stable, affordable application and desktop delivery solution to customers. The solution was more straightforward to install than Citrix, and it allowed the MSP company to provide seamless application delivery, remote assistance, and desktop management.

Effect ICT uses Parallels RAS, a comprehensive virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solution, to deliver its customers’ Microsoft Office, browsers, and customized applications on a wide range of devices. Nearly all devices are deployed at their customers’ workplaces, including Windows, Mac, Chromebook, Android, iPhone, iPad and Linux. The company also relies on the Parallels HTML5 Client to deliver applications and desktops over web browsers on any device or platform.

In addition, the Service Provider License Agreement (SPLA) model licensing meant that Effect ICT did not pay upfront costs but rather paid based on what was made available to customers each billing period. With Parallels RAS SPLA licensing, Effect ICT was able to activate multiple farms using a single license key and take advantage of automated usage accounting and billing.

The ResultsScalability, flexibility, ease of use, and reduced costs.

Effect ICT experienced many benefits after switching to Parallels RAS. Integration with Microsoft Azure’s cloud service platform meant that the MSP could scale its solution more easily in the future and provide more flexibility to its customers.

Above all, Effect ICT’s top reason for choosing Parallels RAS over Citrix was automated load balancing.

As an all-inclusive VDI solution, critical functionality features, such as load balancing, are included as standard. Private cloud-based resources can be used more efficiently, improving virtualization stability for customers.

Another benefit of Parallels RAS is that the entire solution could be set up on their private cloud within five minutes. In contrast, installing Citrix solutions took months and was an ongoing, unfinished project that sank company resources and time.

Importantly, Effect ICT was able to lower costs by implementing Parallels RAS. SPLA licensing made the VDI solution particularly attractive, with its comprehensive set of features, including multifactor authentication and printer redirection.

Effect ICT was able to take advantage of the mobile-friendly end-user experience afforded by Parallels RAS to help their customers implement bring-your-own- device (BYOD) and choose-your-own-device (CYOD) policies. Using Parallels RAS, Effect ICT could connect nearly any remote device to their private cloud server and deliver a close-to-native experience to end users on any device, including Android and iOS.

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