Based in the north of Sweden with offices across the Nordics and Baltics, Malux supplies technical solutions for a safer world, including lighting, communications and electrical equipment for hazardous environments. Founded in 1972, the company evolved its IT infrastructure over time to become a mixed environment of PCs and thin clients. Outdated hardware made it difficult for employees to access information and be productive outside the office.
Malux wanted to make their business more secure, scalable and mobile, that’s why its CIO Jörgen Norman partnered with Citrix Platinum Solution Advisor AceIQ to develop a more agile infrastructure with Citrix SD-WAN and Workspace. They moved their data center to Microsoft Azure and run all their apps and data from the cloud in the Azure West Europe region.
“Cloud is the best way to make IT competitive and adaptable, but none of the other options we considered had the full portfolio with mobile device management and mobile application management that you get with Citrix Endpoint Management. And we liked Citrix Virtual Desktops. We knew that our applications worked very well in that environment.”
“We can create a new office in hours, not weeks”
When Norman joined the business, IT had become a constraint. “People complained that IT didn’t support the business,” he says. “We are an increasingly international company, but we still had a local approach to technology.”
Delivering an exceptional Office 365 Experience through Citrix SD-WAN
Business agility and scalability are important goals for Malux—both of which they are now realizing with Citrix SD-WAN and Workspace.
“With Citrix Cloud, Citrix SD-WAN and Microsoft Office 365, we can create a new office anywhere in hours, not weeks or months,” Malux CEO Anders Nygren says. “All we need is an internet connection and a laptop.”
With limited capital expenditure required, business risk is reduced and decision-making is accelerated.
Malux noticed that 40-50 milliseconds of latency were resulting in slow Office 365 application performance because of how their traffic was originally hairpinning through Helsinki to get to the Office 365 cloud.
Using the Microsoft REST API and connectivity principles for Office 365, Citrix SD-WAN can identify and optimize trusted Office 365 traffic and direct it to the edge nodes closest to the apps. Encryption ensures security of the data between office locations and the Office 365 cloud while SD-WAN can steer untrusted and other types of traffic back to a security stack.
“When we turned on the Citrix SD-WAN VPX in Azure for Office 365,” Norman says, “our traffic started going to the Office 365 front door in Amsterdam, latency went to under 10 milliseconds, a decrease of over 80%, and there was a significant improvement in the user experience.”
Mobility for employees, and simplicity for IT
“Being mobile makes Malux very competitive,” Nygren says. “We can employ people from all over the world. We don't really care where our staff are; they can just connect and do their work.”
Mobility makes it easier for people to balance their work and personal lives, too.
“With Citrix Workspace, it’s easy to access your desktop from anywhere, on any device,” Norman explains. “You just log in through the webpage and pick up where you left off. It gives people peace of mind. You're not tied to your desk. You can go and pick up the kids, then log in from home on your child’s iPad to do the last 30 minutes’ work. People really like the simplicity.”
The same simplicity extends to IT management. “The biggest benefit is ease of support,” Norman says. “Whatever device they use, people have one familiar desktop. If there is a problem with hardware, they just log in somewhere else. It has freed so much support time.”
Improved security
Citrix Workspace has improved the security of Malux’s apps and data, too:
“With Citrix Endpoint Management, we can control the apps we want our users to have on their phones. We also have a greater protection from cyber-attacks like ransom-ware. We have not had a single incident since we moved to Microsoft Azure and Citrix Cloud. We are confident that users don't have the ability to start any unauthorized application. The device is not an attack surface anymore."
