PennEnergy Resources Makes a Smooth Transition to Remote Work with Parallels RAS
About PennEnergy Resources
PennEnergy Resources is a Pittsburgh-based independent oil and gas company focused on the acquisition and development of unconventional shale resources in the Appalachian Basin of the United States. They are committed to being a best-in-class shale development company that creates value for our investors, stakeholders, employees and landowners through the safe and environmentally responsible development of unconventional resources. Founded in 2011, the company now has more than 390 wells in production over 210,000 gross acres.
The Challenge
When the Coronavirus Pandemic began, PennEnergy was one of the many businesses that needed to increase remote work capabilities. Although they had already used some remote practices, this was the first time every employee needed to be able to work from home. While the company had considered using Citrix Virtual Apps (formerly XenApp) as their remote working solution, the PennEnergy IT leader’s experience had shown many deployments required a lot of servers and could easily get complicated. Instead, they decided to use Parallels® Remote Application Server (RAS) as a virtual application and desktop delivery solution that would enable their staff and contractors to work remotely from anywhere, on the devices of their choice.
The Solution
PennEnergy decided to adopt Parallels RAS to replace VPN access for its entire organization. After upgrading, employees could access network applications and resources by simply going to the Parallels Web Portal or using the Parallels Client. This solution also enabled PennEnergy to increase user security by implementing multifactor authentication.
When the pandemic hit, PennEnergy decided to expand its use of Parallels RAS further rather than upgrade its previous VPN solution. Now, all Parallels RAS infrastructure runs as VMWare virtual machines, and the PennEnergy IT team has found this solution to be very easy to set up and administer. Contrary to the many servers they had feared would be required, with Parallels RAS, they can host everything on a single server.
The company uses Parallels RAS for everything from publishing network drives for employees to tap into remote access, publishing desktops, and providing access to people’s office computers. Parallels RAS helps enhance management and support by enabling IT admins to monitor and manage data centrally. Live support is also available 24/7, a critical necessity when troubleshooting during off-hours usage.
“When we moved to Parallels from our previous VPN solution, all our employees had to do was log into a web page and accept a push prompt on their phone. No more hassling with VPN clients or losing user productivity if they didn’t have their laptops with them.”
The Results
Thanks to Parallels RAS, PennEnergy made a smooth transition to a remote work environment for everyone from Accounting and Finance to Geology and other science staff. The IT team also appreciated how easy and intuitive the installation was, and afterward, they enjoyed the simplicity of maintaining and managing Parallels RAS. If an employee forgets their laptop, productivity is not impacted as everything is accessible via phone or tablet.
Beyond improvements in accessibility and security, PennEnergy found Parallels RAS to be a more cost-effective solution than Citrix and the other alternatives, with more affordable licensing plans and an all-inclusive installation that does not require additional features to be successful. With Parallels RAS, PennEnergy Resources can focus on their main objective—maintaining productive energy output even in these challenging times.
About Parallels
Parallels is a global leader in virtual desktop, application delivery and mobile device management solutions. Thousands of organizations worldwide trust in the reliability and scalability of Parallels virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and virtualization solutions. Parallels makes it simple and affordable to deliver applications to any device over the cloud, or with on-premises and hybrid deployments. The company’s solution portfolio includes the award-winning Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS), providing platform-independent virtual desktop, application delivery and integrated thin-client management from a unified interface to any modern operating system.
