Challenge
Having outgrown its on-prem data center, facing issues delivering virtual labs with its previous solution, and adapting to a globally distributed workforce, CLICO knew it needed a more powerful, cloud-based solution to deliver training from any location and reduce the costs attached to physical hardware maintenance.
Solution
With Skytap Virtual IT Labs, CLICO saves invaluable time configuring classes, can support virtual labs globally at high speeds, and no longer bears the cost of a physical data center. Skytap enabled CLICO to move its virtual training labs to the cloud and efficiently supports hundreds of classes per year for students around the world.
About CLICO
CLICO is a valued added distributor focusing on computer security, networks, and management solutions and support in Poland and throughout Europe. Founded in 1991, CLICO offers partners and clients a comprehensive set of consulting, educational and audit services, as well as support for CLICO engineers in the development and implementation of projects.
CLICO’s Challenge
Prior to working with Skytap, CLICO relied on a home-grown virtual labs solution hosted in its data center in Warsaw, Poland. However, it faced a number of challenges due to the rapidly growing size of its business and the ongoing maintenance costs of the physical hardware in its data center. Nearly half of the company’s workforce was working remotely or from different countries and CLICO did not have the resources to keep up with the data center issues. The global pandemic further accelerated CLICO’s interest in moving out of its data center and into the cloud to reduce costs and offer better availability for its customers.
Skytap Solution
In considering a cloud-based virtual IT labs solution, CLICO selected Skytap due to the following product features and capabilities:
- Ability to quickly provision environments and build and re-use templates
- Global availability and geographical locations of data centers
- On-demand delivery and low latency
- Ease of use for instructors and learners
Skytap enabled CLICO to save money by eliminating its physical data center in Warsaw. The company now utilizes Skytap data centers in Europe and globally to deliver fast connection speeds no matter where its instructors and students are located. By using Skytap’s cloud-based virtual machines, both CLICO’s trainers and learners can access labs from anywhere that has an internet connection without issues.
Skytap’s Course Manager solution, an add-on of the Skytap Virtual IT Labs offering, has made configuring courses faster through templates. Trainers can now deploy a workshop or course for multiple learners at the same time and have expressed how the tool is very easy to use. “Course Manager is a very nice solution which really helps our trainers, and automates work, decreasing time spent on unnecessary functions,” says Piotr Misiowiec, Education Services Director at CLICO. The CLICO team saves time and works more efficiently as they can now provision labs in less than 50% of the time it took previously.
Outcomes
Since the company began utilizing Skytap Virtual IT Labs in 2018, CLICO has leveraged the solution to scale its virtual labs and classrooms across the globe, eliminate its physical data center and adopt a cloud-first strategy. What used to take nearly an hour to complete now only consumes 20 to 30 minutes with the use of Skytap’s Course Manager. As Misiowiec says, “it’s easy, efficient, and saves money and time.”
In addition to these benefits, with Skytap CLICO is able to:
- Utilize Skytap’s global availability without paying for and maintaining costly hardware and related maintenance costs
- Reduce the time it takes to provision courses and workshops from over an hour to 20 minutes
- Support hundreds of virtual labs, courses, and workshops per year
- Support learners across the globe with high speed of delivery and no latency issues
CLICO continues to expand and offer more virtual training labs to ensure its customers are well-trained on its products and solutions. In addition to fast connection speeds and the use of Skytap data centers, the company has also enjoyed other benefits of being cloud-based such as business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities.
“We’ve never had problems with any outage, or malfunctioning of environments. It’s proven that working in the cloud is more regular, smoother, easier to manage and we have very big cost savings for our operations.”
Piotr Misiowiec, Education Services Director, CLICO
