OREANDA-NEWS.Alongside moving to new office building Jupiter Centre, a large-scale IT project was implemented in ABLV Bank and its affiliate structures - switching to virtual desktop technology. Now almost 400 officers use virtual desktops, and it is planned that the project will be completed till the end of the year, so that all other officers of ABLV Group, including those working in representative offices abroad, switch to this solution.

After implementing the new technology, users have just zero client device (ensuring connection to common server), modern monitor, wireless keyboard and mouse at their desks. Whereas uncountable peripheral devices -printers, scanners and copiers used by the bank's officers before - are substituted with three multifunctional devices that perform all said functions at each floor of the bank's building. Due to these changes, the workplaces became much more convenient and ergonomic, and the premises in general - more quiet, since the noise of computer case fans has disappeared.

The major reason for switching to virtual desktops is caring about safety and protection of customers' and bank's information. The new technology ensures much higher security level, since no data is stored at local computer discs any longer - all information is located on central server, thus facilitating backup and restoration.

The technology enables efficient allocation of IT resources, since each officer is provided computing power according to the work performed, and it can be easily increased if necessary.

Another benefit is the possibility to access one's personal work environment from any computer connected to ABLV common system. Thus moving between offices becomes easier for officers, which is especially important when working at the group's foreign representative offices during business trips.

We are the first organization in Latvia to implement the new technology for such large number of users. The investments in the project exceeded EUR 1 million. There were Cisco servers and communication devices, EMC disc arrays, Dell monitors, and VmWare software used for desktop and server virtualization. It was a major challenge for ABLV IT staff to implement the new system without interrupting the bank's work, meanwhile ensuring access to specific software for officers from various structural units.