"We were no longer completely satisfied with Citrix. We feel it is a very complex solution with many different servers. In addition, we found that the licensing model used was no longer in line with the added value for our limited user population. That's why we started looking for a simpler alternative."
System Administrator
Port of Antwerp (Havenbedrijf Antwerpen) plays an important role in the daily operation of the Belgian port. Their 1500 employees manage and maintain the docks, bridges and locks of the second largest port in Europe. They are also responsible for towing and dredging work in the docks, among other things.
To make remote working safe, simple, and efficient for their administrative staff, they replaced their Citrix environment with Parallels Secure Workspace’s digital workplace.
Homegrown Citrix alternative
In the past, teleworkers and people in the field at Port of Antwerp used Citrix as a solution to gain access to applications and documents.
The Port Authority looked at Parallels Secure Workspace and decided to study the digital workplace with a focus on simplicity and safety. “We first made a comparison with another solution,” says Stijn, “but a lot of the workspace functionalities we were looking for were missing. For example, it wasn’t completely HTML5-ready, there was no multi-monitor support and True SSO. These were all functionalities that were high on our wish list”.
When comparing Parallels Secure Workspace with Citrix, Port of Antwerp concluded that Parallels Secure Workspace was the better choice given its simplicity in both management and use.
"Simplicity is a core value of the Port Authority, which is why we are always charmed when we find it in management software solutions. What's more, this simplicity means that we have much more time for other innovative projects, something that is in the DNA of the Port Authority."
Member of the Executive Committee, responsible for digitization and innovation
Extensive security tests
A company like Port of Antwerp manages and processes a mass of sensitive data. Data security is therefore of the utmost importance, and they wanted to prevent problems from happening in the first place, rather than fix them. That’s why Yannick Herrebaut, Port of Antwerp’s Cyber Resilience Manager, ran extensive tests on the Parallels Secure Workspace software to make sure that Parallels Secure Workspace’s “zero trust, zero complexity” mantra was right.
The digital workspace passed all tests without any problems.
"An additional advantage of Parallels Secure Workspace is that our external IDP integrated seamlessly within Parallels Secure Workspace. This allowed us to take full advantage of the built-in SSO capabilities to give our users easier and safer access to their applications and files."
System Administrator
Parallels Secure Workspace within Port of Antwerp
Currently, the use of Parallels Secure Workspace at the Port Authority is twofold: on the one hand, home workers and remote workers (mostly administrative staff) use it for secure access via any device to their data and applications. On the other hand, it’s also used for applications that send a lot of data over the network and typically become very slow via an ordinary VPN solution.
The latter is not a problem with Parallels Secure Workspace because the data transfer is limited to the pixel rendering of the workstation.
In addition, there are applications at the Port Authority that simply do not work over VPN, which Parallels Secure Workspace provides to the end user without any problems. Parallels Secure Workspace is also used to provide access to technical applications that run on a server which only certain users are permitted to access.
