“We had just virtualized on the server side and it made sense to move the desktops virtual as well,” said Brian Clarke, Director of Information Services, Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP. “While the VDI move made great cost and benefit sense, it wasn’t as seamless as we wanted it to be. We had some issues with storage and design, but most significantly, our endpoint choice was
causing us grief.”

With eight offices across the country, the Schnader VDI infrastructure is supported by a data center in Philadelphia. When working from offices in San Francisco, for example, attorneys were experiencing slow performance and choppy rendering, even on their
primary monitors using their existing endpoints. Users in its headquarters, too, reported similar experiences, due to a lack of support the aging endpoints had for dual monitors.

“With so many complaints about the performance of our previous endpoints, we began moving many people back to physical PCs,” said Clarke. “In some cases the manageability just stopped working, throwing unknown errors, and support from our previous endpoint vendor wasn’t any help. We knew we needed to make a change to recapture the full value of our VDI investment and avoid additional physical PC expense.”

IGEL Delivers Performance, Management Simplicity and Control – Out of the Box

Schnader began to evaluate its options. After hearing its trusted solution provider Conversant Group, LLC mention the value and performance of endpoints from IGEL, Schnader decided to embark on a pilot test. Specifically, the law firm wanted to evaluate the IGEL Universal Desktop endpoints’ performance, manageability and dual screen resolution.

“Out of the box, the IGEL endpoint performance was great,” said Clarke. “They really delivered a ‘wow’ factor we didn’t expect. The second screen support is superior and application performance, even for our furthest away users, was exceptional.”

After the successful pilot test, Schnader moved forward quickly to deploy the IGEL Universal Desktops throughout each of its eight offices. “Getting set up was very easy,” said Clarke. “We just put in the Citrix address and it started working. And the reaction across
the board has been great. We get, ‘wow, this is much better’ feedback as soon as users see the new endpoints working.”

Among the benefits Schnader has realized with the new IGEL Universal Desktops is the simplified management and increased control. As a law firm, Schnader is always concerned with policy management, security and control. Using the IGEL Universal Management Suite, Clarke and his staff can easily and securely administer all of their endpoint devices from a single console, significantly reducing management time and enabling greater device control.

“We have a thin staff and simply can’t devote a lot to desktop administration time,” said Clarke. “With IGEL we got just what we needed. It was easy to use, set up and manage. When we needed help setting up the management console, IGEL was there for us making it easy. We didn’t have the same experience at all when we evaluated competitors, who just gave us links to admin
guides to set it up ourselves. “We knew right away we were making the right choice to go with IGEL. While performance was always the top deciding factor, price was also a consideration and IGEL was competitive with the other companies, with a better
solution. Even more, our solution provider Conversant also uses IGEL internally. That’s a nice reference; the fact that they use them too speaks volumes, and gives us increased confidence.”

“Out of the box, the IGEL endpoint performance was great, they really delivered a ‘wow’ factor we didn’t expect. The  second screen support is superior and application performance, even for our furthest away users, was exceptional.”