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RESOURCE

Asset Management Firm Uses Cloud Hosted Virtual Desktop Solution to Reduce IT Budget by 47%

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THE CHALLENGE

Growing pains in a volatile market

National Asset Direct (NAD), a $1.2 B asset management firm specializing in real estate investments, faced these mounting operational challenges:

Cost Pressures

Market volatility demanded aggressive operational cost reduction.

Performance Issues

Existing hosted desktop environment suffered frequent disruptions.

Remote Work Limitations

Employees struggled with poor connectivity and system access outside the office.

Scalability Concerns

Growing business requirements outpaced their legacy infrastructure’s capabilities.
THE SOLUTION

XTIUM's Cloud Hosted Virtual Desktop Platform

After evaluating alternatives including Amazon Web Services, Rackspace, and IBM cloud solutions, NAD selected XTIUM's Cloud Hosted Virtual Desktop platform.

"After moving to the hosted desktop solution from XTIUM, we've realized significant cost savings - reducing our overall technology spend by 47 %."

John Madrid, Chief Technology Officer, National Asset Direct, Inc.

Zero disruption implementation and migration process:

  • Seamless transfer of 200 hosted desktops over a single weekend.
  • 40% reduction in server footprint, from 50 to just 30.
  • Windows 7 and Microsoft Office Professional 2010 deployment.
  • Remote Desktop Services enabling secure access from any device.
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Key Business Outcomes

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Financial Impact

  • 50% reduction in monthly IT operating costs
  • 40% decrease in server infrastructure
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Productivity Gains

  • Universal access: Employees work efficiently from any location on any device
  • Faster provisioning: Streamlined user account creation and application deployment
  • Improved reliability: Enhanced system uptime and connectivity
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Strategic Advantages

  • Enhanced IT control: Web-based administration tools with complete environment visibility.
  • Business agility: Ability to rapidly scale operations up or down to match market conditions.
  • Location independence: Freedom to relocate business operations without technology constraints.

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Customer Information

National Asset Direct, Inc. 
Business Type: Asset Management Firm ($1.2B Annual Revenue)
Country or Region: United States
Industry: Professional Services - Real Estate 

Partner: XTIUM
Customer Profile: National Asset Direct (NAD), Inc. specializes in helping investors in the real-estate market manage and service real-estate related assets. The company has offices in San Diego, California, and New York.

Software and Services

Windows 7
• Microsoft Office
    − Microsoft Office Professional 2010
• Microsoft Server Product Portfolio
    − Windows Server 2008 R2
    − Microsoft Exchange Server 2010
• Technologies
    − Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services
• Third-Party Services
    − XTIUM Hosted Virtual Desktops
For more information about Microsoft Cloud Power, go to: www.microsoft.com/cloud

National Asset Direct, Inc.'s Business Needs 

Extreme volatility in the real-estate market has sparked heavy demand for proprietary debt management services and tools that National Asset Direct, Inc. (NAD) provides. To shield against future turmoil in the real-estate and financial sectors, NAD executives are continuously searching for ways to trim operating costs.

John Madrid, Chief Technology Officer at National Asset Direct, Inc., has applied this approach to the company’s IT function. “We’re always looking for ways to drive down infrastructure costs, and still provide our people with the tools they need to stay productive,” says Madrid. 

For several years, NAD worked with a private hosting services provider that supported the company’s thin-client operating environment. This solution enabled NAD employees to easily access their virtual desktops from any thin-client system at any office location.

However, remote access was a challenge. Employees could access email from outside the office via Microsoft Outlook Web Access. But internal system access to productivity tools, network file shares, and specialized business applications, such as Microsoft Dynamics GP for accounting and FICS Mortgage Servicer, was limited. 

Executives had long recognized the enormous potential of using a virtualized environment and hosted desktop approach to reduce hardware costs, support workforce flexibility, and bolster business continuity.

However, based largely on their previous experience, they wanted to revisit their existing implementation.
As the company began growing, system performance and scalability issues increased, which would often disrupt business operations. In the event of service interruptions, or on days when weather conditions prevented travel to the office, employees attempted to work from home, but in vain.

“We used a terminal services configuration to enable staff to remotely connect to our network,” says Madrid. “But we often ran into performance and capacity issues that made it difficult for people to get work done from outside of the office.”

“After moving to the hosted desktop solution from XTIUM, we’ve realized significant cost savings - reducing our overall technology spend by 50%.

John Madrid,
Chief Technology Officer, National Asset Direct, Inc.

The Solution – XTIUM’s Cloud Virtual Desktop

To keep infrastructure costs low, increase internal management control of its IT systems, and support productivity from anywhere, leaders at NAD explored the market for a new hosted desktop solution. 

Executives considered several alternatives, including solutions built on a variety of technologies, such as Amazon Web Services, Rackspace, and the IBM cloud platform. In 2011, an IT consultancy and value-added reseller of Microsoft solutions that had worked with NAD in the past, introduced the company to a cloud services provider, now called XTIUM.

Based in Tampa, Florida, XTIUM is a member of the Microsoft Partner Network that specializes in providing desktop and server virtualization services. “It didn’t take us long to realize that the XTIUM Hosted Virtual Desktop was the turnkey solution we’d been looking for,” says Madrid. “It exceeded our requirements for performance, ease of management— and best of all, price.” 

XTIUM used vWorkspace from Quest Software, a solution designed to simplify the deployment and management of desktop virtualization technologies, to transfer NAD user account information, business data, applications, virtualization servers and storage to the XTIUM environment—all with minimal impact to business. XTIUM worked with NAD to move 200 hosted desktops to its fully managed cloud solution over a three-day weekend. By relying on the advanced consolidation tools from Quest Software, the XTIUM deployment team helped NAD reduce its server holdings from approximately 50 to 30. 

XTIUM’s client systems, which run the Windows 7 operating system and Microsoft Office Professional 2010, were delivered through the Remote Desktop Services capability in Windows Server 2008 Release 2. From any Internet-connected computer, tablet PC, or mobile device, employees could use their network logon credentials to access all of the applications they needed to do their job. NAD takes advantage of online administrator tools to manage these systems and deploy applications with greater ease.

Benefits

With the XTIUM Hosted Virtual Desktop solution, which delivers a high-fidelity Windows 7 desktop experience, together with Microsoft communication and productivity tools, NAD has experienced the following benefits:
Reduced-Costs

Reduced monthly IT OpEx by 50%

By adopting the XTIUM’s solution, NAD has reduced its monthly IT service subscription costs. NAD has also lowered its monthly IT operating budget by reducing its server holdings by 40%. “After moving to the hosted desktop solution from XTIUM, we’ve realized significant cost savings—reducing our overall technology spend by 47%,” says Madrid.
productivity

Increased workforce productivity

NAD employees could access files and applications from practically anywhere, on nearly any Internet-connected device, and work more efficiently. IT staff could create user accounts and provision applications in less time, so employees could gain faster access to the tools they needed to do their job. Based on increased system availability, improved remote connectivity to the corporate network, and simplified delivery of business applications, employees saved a substantial amount of time each week. 

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Enhanced IT control

NAD has used the combination of web-based administrator tools and managed services through its XTIUM subscription to reduce its IT support burden, while gaining peace of mind from enhanced control of its infrastructure. “We work closely with XTIUM to manage all of our virtual desktops and servers, giving us complete visibility into our environment at all times,” says Madrid. 

operational flexibility

Greater operational flexibility

Through access to the XTIUM hosted environment, NAD enjoys greater agility. “Having the ability to quickly move business operations from one location to another, without the usual overhead of moving technology, enables our business leaders to expand and contract operational units, in order to take advantage of the rapidly changing market,” says Madrid. “Now, for our staff, work isn’t a place we go, it’s what we do to meet the needs of our clients, anytime, anywhere.”

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