Aoba Hopkins

IT Services Company Reduces IT Costs 35% with Sun Secure Global Desktop and Sun Thin-Client Solution

Aoba Hopkins Information Management is the IT-service division of Aoba Hopkins Group, a well-established accounting, audit, tax, and business consulting firm in China. The IT division specializes in business-process reengineering, technology management, and enterprise solutions. The division provides both ready-made and customized offerings for CRM, document-management, workflow, and ERP systems.

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Customer Challenges

Provide a highly secure solution for remote access to applications and project files
Deliver a system that is not only easy to use but also compatible with the existing infrastructure
Create a solution that is scalable to support rapid growth

Solution

The Aoba Hopkins IT-service division revamped the company’s IT infrastructure, deploying Sun Ray 2 thin clients, Sun Ray Software, and Sun Secure Global Desktop software to replace its VPN. The solution gave the company’s auditors and consultants easy, highly secure remote access to its applications, files, and data from thin-client devices. The Sun solution eliminated many PC user issues, thereby saving IT staff time and reducing IT costs by roughly 35%.

Business Results

Reduced IT spending by approximately 35%
Provided easy, highly secure remote access to company servers
Gained comprehensive data protection
Established a scalable solution that supports company growth
Refocused resources to win new business deals

Products and Services

Story Details

The auditors and consultants of Aoba Hopkins Group travel widely throughout China, operating from offices in Hong Kong and Guangzhou. Wherever they go, the employees need access to applications and files on the company’s servers.

Previously, the company used a VPN for remote access, but as time went on, performance declined. So, in June 2007, Aoba Hopkins Information Management, the company’s IT division, decided to upgrade the corporate IT infrastructure to provide an easy-to-use and highly secure solution for remote access. The company also wanted low startup costs, minimal installation requirements, and compatibility with the company’s existing Windows, Web, and client/server applications. The solution also needed to support rapid growth. The Guangzhou office alone had grown from 20 to 70 employees in 2007–2008, and further expansion is planned.

" Sun was able to offer us exactly what we were looking for. It could provide a real thin-client solution on an open platform that is compatible with our Linux and Microsoft back-end vendor solutions — all at a remarkably low setup cost. "

— Daniel Ma, Director, Aoba Hopkins

Aoba Hopkins looked at four vendors and chose a Sun solution based on the Sun Ray 2 thin clients, Sun Ray Software and Sun Secure Global Desktop Software. With this solution, Aoba centralized its applications in a datacenter to give employees access to its Windows, Web, and client/server applications from any Java-enabled Web browser, replacing its VPN. After a successful pilot, the solution was rolled out to both offices within two months, with the deployment of 10 Sun Ray 2 thin clients in Hong Kong and 30 in Guangzhou. For security reasons, the USB port on each thin-client device was disabled to prevent customizations of the employee desktops. Because the Sun Ray thin clients lack local storage, the risk of unauthorized access to data is also greatly minimized. The deployment process went smoothly, and productivity was not interrupted. “Overall, the process has been remarkably straightforward and easy to implement,” says Daniel Ma, director, Aoba Hopkins.

The company quickly saw benefits from its Sun solution — savings in bandwidth were immediately realized. Also, the deployment of the Sun Ray thin clients minimized problems users had with their PCs — problems the IT staff had to spend many hours resolving. As a result, Aoba Hopkins has reduced IT costs by about 35%. The company is reallocating resources to business development and has won several new business deals as a result.

The Sun solution has also opened the door to future growth. The company is considering implementing a comprehensive virtualization environment featuring multiple server applications in several languages, including traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, and Japanese. Ma expects it to provide the company with the ability to expand its remote-access capabilities with increased growth. Ma believes the virtualized environment will further enhance productivity and result in long-term savings in operational costs. He cites the Sun thin-client solution as the one that “not only fully meets our business needs, but also provides capabilities for our company’s rapid expansion.”