Esperanza Health Center Implements Parallels RAS to Enhance Microsoft RDS
Company Overview
Esperanza Health Center, established in 1989, is a multicultural ministry providing holistic health care to the Latino and underserved communities of Philadelphia. Its mission is to provide affordable, quality, bilingual primary health care and support services.
The Challenge
Before Parallels® Remote Application Server (RAS), Esperanza Health Center relied on Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (RDS) alone to provide concurrent access to shared health-related applications to between 101 and 250 client users. The healthcare professionals at the organization needed access to GE Healthcare Centricity 12.2 to reach and manipulate electronic medical records (EMS).
Furthermore, the organization wanted to have a mobile-enabled workforce with a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy available. Healthcare employees used a wide range of devices, including Windows, Mac, Android, iPhone, iPad, and Microsoft Surface.
With Microsoft RDS, Esperanza Health Center found that their virtualization was limited in terms of functionality. There were certain user-friendly features, such as server load balancing, that were difficult to implement. Furthermore, the reporting tools were not strong enough to meet the organization’s needs.
To simplify and build a more powerful virtual application solution for EMS software delivery, Esperanza Health Center decided to search for an application publishing solution that would give them more functionality while remaining within budget.
The Solution
Esperanza Health Center ultimately decided to use Parallels RAS because of its easy implementation and favorable price point compared to Citrix.
For Esperanza Health Center, the benefits of enhancing Microsoft RDS with Parallels RAS included streamlined application and desktop delivery, straightforward deployment and enterprise range features out of the box.
“We had difficulty with load balancing when we were on Microsoft RDS by itself. Now that we are on Parallels RAS, we use server and network load balancing all the time.”
The Results
After deployment, IT staff at Esperanza Health Center were able to leverage the centralized management tools offered by Parallels RAS while optimizing the server network through automated load balancing. As a result, employees could access applications faster and more reliably while in remote locations—even on mobile devices.
Stuart Allan, IT Director at Esperanza Health, pointed out that the Parallels RAS wizards simplified many time-consuming tasks such as load balancing. The organization could also implement bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies for its employees, allowing them to provide more efficient care to their patients.
Finally, 24×7 tech support from Parallels RAS has served Allan and his team greatly. No matter what time of day, Allan has found there is always a support crew ready to work with him and help make the best choices for Esperanza Health Center’s virtualization needs.
About Parallels
Parallels is a global leader in virtual desktop, application delivery and mobile device management solutions. Thousands of organizations worldwide trust in the reliability and scalability of Parallels virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and virtualization solutions. Parallels makes it simple and affordable to deliver applications to any device over the cloud, or with on-premises and hybrid deployments. The company’s solution portfolio includes the award-winning Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS), providing platform-independent virtual desktop, application delivery and integrated thin-client management from a unified interface to any modern operating system.
