Mydin Mohamed Holdings Berhad Case Study
“
We have slashed the time taken
to update a new software patch
across 2,000 desktops by 500
times, from over 120 man-hours
previously to just 15 minutes
today. This phenomenal
elimination in time has meant
that our IT support staff can
now focus on providing users
with more breakthrough
productivity improvements.
Malik Murad Ali,
IT Director,
Mydin
”
Mydin efficiently scaled its
infrastructure and delivers
applications on demand
through virtualization
Mydin Mohamed Holdings Berhad (Mydin) has grown from a single store
selling toys in 1956 into Malaysia’s largest retailer with 55 outlets nationwide,
including four hypermarkets and five Mydin mart franchises. Mydin employs
6,500 staff nationwide and earned over US$480 million in its last financial year.
Mydin’s success over the years is due to its ability to provide quality products
to customers at a low price. To deliver cost savings to its customers, Mydin
gets its products directly from global and local manufacturers.
Driving growth with a robust IT platform
To become a leading provider of wholesale hypermarkets in Malaysia, Mydin
needed to boost its IT operations. “In our quest to deliver better products and
services to our customers, we realized we needed a robust technology platform
to support our dynamic operations,” said Malik Murad Ali, IT director, Mydin.
In 2001, the company implemented its first centralized Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP) system and was looking for ways to deliver the application
to its users in its seven branches. “Our vendor recommended Citrix and after
extensive testing, we selected Citrix XenApp as our application delivery
platform,” explained Malik.
“With XenApp, the application runs on the server at the datacenter but from
a user perspective, it appears to be running on their desktop. This helped us
remove the complexity of installing the software and the complexity involved
in delivering it to multiple branches. The best part—it works out of the
box,” he added.
Since 2004, Mydin has implemented three major platform changes, using
Citrix® XenApp™ to consolidate and standardize its business applications.
Mydin is now able to support anytime, anywhere application delivery to the
growing number of users from a central location even in areas where broadband
throughput is low.
www.citrix.com
Implementation and deployment of XenServer
and XenDesktop
Key benefits
• Improved application
availability and access
• Slashed software upgrade
time from 120 man-hours
to 15 minutes
• Simplified management of
multiple application identities
and passwords
• Reduced network and
bandwidth costs
• Reduced server footprint
• Immediately uncovered
$50,000 in purchasing errors
through better information
Network environment
• Citrix Access Gateway
• Citrix Branch Repeater
• Citrix XenApp
• Citrix XenDesktop
• Citrix XenServer
In line with improving application performance to its users, Mydin also wanted
to enhance its server environment and increase server utilization. “With IT
being extensively used within our organization, we wanted to realize the
benefits of scale by improving the delivery of business applications running
on our servers to more users and nodes,” said Malik.
As the company was undergoing rapid business expansion, it also wanted to
maximize the use of its entire technology infrastructure. In 2006, Mydin began
implementing server virtualization, using Citrix® XenServer® to cost-effectively
scale its IT platform and deliver applications on demand.
“We wanted to see how server virtualization could help us deploy multiple
virtual servers on fewer blades, all while maintaining or exceeding our current
blade performance,” explained Malik.
With Citrix Access Gateway™ providing access to Mydin’s applications over the
Internet, its executives are able to enjoy secure access to corporate applications
while on overseas business sourcing trips. Additionally, a virtualized server
environment facilitates the rapid commissioning of new servers for on-demand
testing, training and production.
In 2009, the company continued with its virtualization drive by implementing
Citrix® XenDesktop® to expand and convert existing branch PCs into thin
clients. To accelerate and secure application access, Mydin leveraged Citrix®
Branch Repeater™ to reduce bandwidth consumption and improve desktop
and application delivery to its branch users.
Over 500 key personnel can now access its core business application, One,
from any location, at any time, via any enabled device, over any connection.
According to Malik, Citrix virtualization was chosen because of its superior
functionality and seamless desktop interface. “As most of our users are not
IT-savvy people, the Citrix solution is perfect as it is intuitive, easy to use
and requires minimal training,” he added.
The new virtualized, efficient IT environment
boosted operations and business performance
Mydin has been able to efficiently scale its IT platform to meet growing
business demand. “We’re currently serving 1,000 users, but with the Citrix
virtual server configuration, we can scale up to 5,000 without adding a single
physical server—effectively saving up to ten times what we would have paid
if we were to acquire physical servers for future deployments,” said Malik.
The efficiency of its IT environment has also improved. The company expects
to reap energy savings and have a smaller server footprint from a virtualized
solution instead of adding physical servers.
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Mydin Mohamed Holdings Berhad Case Study
Fast turnaround time for application rollout
and upgrade
Citrix solutions have also reduced the time Mydin’s IT personnel need to
deploy and maintain applications. “We have slashed the time taken to update
a new software patch across 2,000 desktops by 500 times, from over 120
man-hours previously to just 15 minutes today. This phenomenal elimination
in time has meant that our IT support staff can now focus on providing users
with more breakthrough productivity improvements,” said Malik.
Rapid return on investments achieved in
two months
The significant cost savings from enhanced availability and easier support
has led Mydin to achieve a return on investment in Citrix solutions within
the first two months of implementation. Malik said, “We were able to
consolidate applications into a single location and this allowed for better
information management. In fact, soon after implementation, we were able
to identify errant suppliers that were double-delivering products totaling
over US$50,000.”
Malik concluded, “A virtualized platform for our servers and applications
really improved our infrastructure scalability. We went from 20 to 40 to our
current 55 stores and we can easily scale up to 100 using Citrix virtualization
technology. Hence, to the CIOs considering virtualization, my advice is to
go for it—the benefits are tremendous.”
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