Dublin Bay Power Plant (DBPP) is a 400 megawatt combined cycle gas turbine generation plant situated in Ringsend, a Dublin suburb. It is maintained by Utility Operations & Maintenance Services (UOMS), which is part of growing international energy company ESB International.
DBPP provides up to 9% of electricity generated on the island of Ireland and has a comparatively lean team of employees on-site who need reliable tools in place to enable them to be highly productive and react quickly to any situation that may disrupt service.
DBPP has rolled out a Citrix cloud services environment to help support its growing IT infrastructure – ultimately allowing staff to work more efficiently and flexibly – and creating a greener IT environment.
The solution
By deploying Citrix technology, DBPP’s objective was to create a simplified, cost-effective, flexible IT infrastructure that would ultimately allow its employees to be more effective through the ability to work from anywhere, whilst at the same time enhancing critical application performance and considerably reducing management and hardware costs.
Designed and implemented by Unity Technology Solutions, a Citrix Gold Solutions advisor, the new infrastructure is powered by Citrix cloud services technologies – including Citrix XenDesktop and XenServer – and has resulted in a more agile and cost-effective IT environment.
Old “fat client” PCs have been replaced with thin clients and virtual desktops powered by XenDesktop and Wyse Terminals. Citrix NetScaler Branch Repeater was also installed to increase application access speed across different sites.
As part of the project, DBPP’s server estate was also significantly consolidated through server virtualisation. Ultimately, DBPP can now deliver virtual desktops and enhanced applications to all 41 employees, providing more flexible and productive working capabilities.
Unity provided desktop and application access from any location on any device resulting in quick responses to critical issues. Operating costs were significantly reduced as a result, with 90% savings in power consumption.
The benefits
The Citrix deployment at DBPP has already delivered critical benefits. Employees can now access desktops and applications from any location, via any device – and respond to issues such as a possible plant trip, critical failure or shutdown quickly via iPhones or iPads – providing immediate support and avoiding unnecessary disruptions.
Further, operating costs have been significantly reduced: total hardware cost savings over a ten-year period will be in the region of 82%. The company’s projections also show in excess of 90% saving in power consumption, driving down operating expenditure and playing an important role in complying with the green IT policy.
As well as supporting the plant’s critical business continuity and disaster recovery procedures, the new infrastructure is agile enough to support the company’s new corporate initiatives, particularly a company-wide green IT policy designed to significantly reduce overall office energy usage.
With a streamlined infrastructure and faster applications, DBPP is also now able to actively realise its plan of implementing a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy. The company believes this next stage innovation will increase worker productivity, boost employee job satisfaction and further cut IT costs.
Unity Technology Solutions, in collaboration with Citrix and Wyse Technology, is excited to be part of such a success story and looks forward to supporting DBPP in its continued business objectives and flexible working.