A leading China LCD manufacturer minimizes project risks and speeds deployment times with iCONN Server
Tianma Microelectronics is one of the large publicly listed companies in the manufacturing industry. They provide a full electronics manufacturing and design services for Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs) and Liquid Crystal Modules (LCMs), including all operations functions of research, design, manufacturing, sales and service. Tianma runs five domestic factories located in Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chengdu, Wuhan, and Xiamen, as well as three overseas divisions in Europe, the United States, and South Korea. After 30 years of development, Tianma has established itself as an industry leader in LCD design, with a complete system for quality control management, operations and maximizing efficiency. In order to support their core business operations, Tianma emphasizes continuous improvement on IT security, reducing operating costs and simplifying maintenance.
Tianma Microelectronics has many years of experience in deploying and operating virtual desktops from an international VDI vendor. They understood the key benefits of desktop virtualization and how centralized administration could improve IT services and deliver data security. They also understood the hidden issues from previous deployment practices, such as increasing system complexity, performance issues, scalability limits, stability problems and hidden costs.
As they looked to expand their current virtual desktop deployment, they determined that they needed to consider alternative vendors. After several months of careful research, proof-of-concept testing and rigorous evaluation, Tianma chose Owtware iConn Server as their new preferred cloud desktop virtualization platform.
Customer Challenges
Data Security. Tianma’s main business is in the design and development of proprietary designs for LCD displays and components. The loss of component designs and business practices through accidental disclosure or theft could mean millions of dollars in lost revenue and opportunity. Therefore it is essential that their IT systems protect those investments. Using VDI to solve these systems was a natural fit.
Easy Migration. Tianma had invested significant time and effort into a multi-national VDI solution. A replacement solution had to provide an easy migration path to convert the existing data, machines and users from the existing system to the new system. Their end users needed to have a system that was intuitive and easy to learn in order to reduce training time and costs.
Boot Storm. Tianma’s existing VDI solution experienced the classic boot-storm issues. Boot times during peak hours ranged from 5 to 10 minutes. This caused users to be frustrated, decreasing customer satisfaction and causing lost productivity. The new solution must address the boot-storm issue.
Decrease TCO. Tianma’s investments in VDI saw increasing costs associated with more expensive hardware, add-on features and frequent maintenance calls. A replacement solution should reduce TCO by reducing support calls, improving usability, and utilizing standard hardware components to reduce the total cost of operations.
Diverse Workforce. Tianma’s workforce is quite diverse, with user workloads ranging from back-office, 3D design, CAD, software development, and administrative work. The VDI solution needs to accommodate all of these different workloads with a single solution to reduce IT maintenance costs and complexity.
Reduce Complexity. Tianma’s previous VDI solution required many different components in order to operate, including external storage, specialized networking devices, and extra server components. The system was becoming more and more complicated and difficult to manage. They needed a solution that would radically reduce complexity to support their expansion plans.
Owtware Solution
Rapid Deployment. Owtware’s iCONN Server can be installed and running in just 5 minutes. Because of the unique software-defined all-in-one design, there are no additional external dependencies to install and configure. All system functions can be up and operational simply by powering on the system. For Tianma, the installation of their new 8-server deployment took just one day to complete, from rack to fully configured and operational.
Simple Management. The Owtware iCONN Server’s user and management interface is patterned after simple web applications. There are no extra client packages to install and configure. This means that the user interface is simple and intuitive, helping the user to be quickly master common functions and operations. The IT manager for Tianma only took 3 days to learn how to use the management system and to operate the system independently.
Enterprise Features. Owtware iCONN Server contains a complete set of functions required for enterprise deployments. For example, the system contains built-in support for Microsoft Active Directory ® integration, multi-factor authentication, network attached storage (NAS) integration and management, administrative alerts, reporting, and advance diagnostics tools. These features enable enterprises to seamlessly integrate Owtware solutions with their existing IT investments.
Converged Architecture. Owtware iCONN Server is built on a converged hardware platform. This means that storage, compute and networking resources are combined into each server, delivering maximum IO performance and minimum latency. Local solid-state caching guarantees lightning fast response while slower spindle disks deliver optimal storage density/cost ratios.
Linear Scale. Each Owtware iCONN Server contains a complete system for managing a virtual desktop system. However, when connected together on the same network, Owtware iCONN Servers will automatically detect and combine together to form a fully integrated cluster. The resources from each individual server are pooled together to deliver a linear increase in capacity. By intelligently managing and distributing work between each node, the cluster can grow virtually unbounded to deliver true linear scalability for any sized deployment.
All-in-one. Owtware iCONN Server is includes all necessary components for deploying and managing a complete VDI solution. This eliminates the need for 3rd party hardware and software components. Because of this, there are no extra hardware costs or hidden software licensing costs required to deploy the system. As well, because of the all-in-one design the deployment for the system is radically simplified.
Customer Benefits
By using Owtware iCONN Server, Tianma enjoyed a total cost of ownership (TCO) savings of over 50% compared to their previous deployment.
Owtare iCONN Server’s simple design and intuitive administration interface Reduce VDI learning curve from 1 year to just 3 days.
After deploying Owtware iCONN Server, Tianma saw reported VDI-related incidents drop by over 95%.
With Owtware iCONN Server, Tianma’s average time for solving VDI-related incidents improved by over 60%.
Summary
Tianma’s focus on data security and managing IT costs lead them to believe strongly in investing in cloud computing technologies and in particular, hosted virtual desktops. However their existing solution increased costs and complexity and lead to dissatisfied users. By switching to Owtware iCONN Server, Tianma was able to finally realize the full potential for saving IT costs, while improving end-user satisfaction and securing their company intellectual property.