Streamlining application deployment at the City of Copenhagen

How do you deploy, manage, provision and update applications for 37,000 users across 72 different locations? Step in AppsAnywhere.

The City of Copenhagen faced a common challenge in public sector IT; delivering software from one central location to users anywhere, giving them the ‘on-demand’ experience that today’s IT consumers expect.

On top of that, the way in which users access the organisation’s software needed to be consistent from location to location, device to device, user to user. Having one point of access not only benefits employees, but it benefits the organisation from an IT administration point of view; updating and managing apps becomes a more efficient, secure and cost-effective process.

One of the largest public sector organisations in Denmark, the City of Copenhagen’s Administrative Resource Centre is based downtown and manages more than 40,000 devices across 72 different geographical locations. The organisation also wanted to support BYOD and encourage its employees to be able to use their own devices, both on-site and off-site, and on-the-go too.

Application deployment simplified with AppsAnywhere and Cloudpaging

The organisation’s IT department were previously using traditional approaches to software delivery, primarily using ‘FAT’ installation to get apps to their managed devices. From a technical standpoint, this involved multiple large ‘images’, the management of which was becoming a time-consuming process and a near impossibility. This method also couldn’t support the organisation’s strategic goals; to be able to get software to users’ home devices.

The Administrative Resource Centre needed a new way of doing things, and like most public sector organisations they first looked to virtual desktops (VDI). They soon realised that to support their requirements and number of users, a more flexible and cost-effective solution was needed.

AppsAnywhere and Cloudpaging (using virtual apps, not virtual desktops) was chosen for several key reasons:

1. No additional IT infrastructure (plus associated cost) was needed
2. They could save time on MSI packaging (everybody hated it anyway!)
3. No longer needed multiple, large images for software
4. Their Windows 10 upgrade project would be much easier with AppsAnywhere
5. Apps could be upgraded at any time, to guarantee application compliance and IT security

AppsAnywhere enables The City of Copenhagen to centrally manage, provision and distribute all their software titles to users, across different locations, operating systems and devices, whether they’re managed machines or BYO devices.