"Parallels Secure Workspace provides a simple and secure solution that meets all of our remote work requirements, including multi-factor authentication. No need for VPNs."
Ajuntament de Malgrat del Mar is a municipality located in Barcelona. With over 20,000 inhabitants, the local government employs between 170 and 180 individuals.
In 2020, their leadership needed to provide secure remote access in order to keep the town running smoothly throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
They discovered Parallels Secure Workspace in March of that same year through one of their partners. Ajuntament de Malgrat del Mar's leadership liked how fast it was to install and the price was affordable for a town hall of their size.
The challengeA simple remote work solution that will enable the Ajuntament de Malgrat del Mar City Council to access their necessary apps and files from anywhere.
Ajuntament de Malgrat del Mar was looking for:
- A quick, easy-to-deploy solution
- Affordability
- Secure remote access
Prior to 2020, Ajuntament de Malgrat del Mar had no remote work capabilities in place. However, it quickly became clear that many inhabitants depended on certain aspects of the municipal government, including payments to employees and providers as well as urgent status reports.
That early pandemic urgency made finding a secure remote work solution that could be speedily implemented a necessity.
They started with access via VPN and a firewall protecting just the mayor and financial comptroller's offices, because those roles and functions were deemed absolutely necessary. However, that was not an ideal long-term solution, since Ajuntament de Malgrat del Mar didn't have enough licenses or MFA capabilities that would add another layer of security.
When a partner told them about Parallels Secure Workspace, they quickly got it up and running, since there is no need to install anything other than the virtual machine on the server.
"Our users had the same experience as if they were working at their physical PCs at the town hall. That's what we were looking for — a way that people could continue working, but from home."
The testWould Parallels Secure Workspace be as simple and secure as the team needed it to be?
The data security of the Ajuntament de Malgrat del Mar town hall was paramount, of course. They needed a solution that could provide a high level of security including MFA, but with a fast implementation process since time was of the essence.
“There are a lot of remote access solutions on the market, but not a lot that are secure.” said Mendoza Hugas. Ajuntament de Malgrat del Mar's head of IT asked for a Proof of Concept and tested it extensively, starting with a pilot group of just four users.
The only other option they tested was VPNs combined with firewalls, but the Ajuntament de Malgrat del Mar's offices lacked the server infrastructure and budget plus that solution didn't quite meet their minimum requirements.
“Once we tried and configured Parallels Secure Workspace within a safe environment with multi-factor authentication” Mendoza Hugas reported, “we soon saw that it met all of our requirements.” From there, the Ajuntament de Malgrat del Mar’s IT deployed the solution to all their departments.
"When you connect to your (Parallels Secure Workspace) you have everything you need already."
The solutionAjuntament de Malgrat del Mar successfully enables secure remote work in a budget-friendly manner.
Security was a primary goal, but the Ajuntament de Malgrat del Mar team also needed a solution that could work with their existing hardware resources and small amounts of memory and storage. Since Parallels Secure Workspace is so lightweight and can be used with any cloud (or on-premises servers), it was flexible enough to fit into their setup nicely.
"We’re independent and we like to manage everything by ourselves, and Parallels Secure Workspace is simple and helps us to do that. It meets all our needs."
The annual subscription enables the Ajuntament de Malgrat del Mar’s team to be flexible and adapt to changing situations while providing the secure remote access their teams require, all while staying within their budget.
The resultAjuntament de Malgrat del Mar was able to offer simple, secure remote desktop access in a way that saves both time and money.
By using Parallels Secure Workspace, Ajuntament de Malgrat del Mar successfully enabled remote work capabilities for their busy city government employees. The main benefits they experienced were:
- Remote work: Employees can now access the desktops and resources they need to keep the town of Ajuntament de Malgrat del Mar humming along.
- Security: With MFA enabled, the Ajuntament de Malgrat del Mar city council and employees can access the files and data they need from anywhere, safely and securely.
- Simplicity: Users can easily log on and access their entire desktop via the browser; implementation time and effort for IT admins was equally minimal.
- Time/cost savings: Not only does Parallels Secure Workspace not require multiple licenses or expensive hardware, but it also saves the IT team significant time.
"The benefit (we) derive from Parallels Secure Workspace is that it provides me with the flexibility and mobility to work from anywhere."
Some employees like councilors, directors, and the mayor need to work after the town hall closes its doors for the day. Parallels Secure Workspace helps them do this with a simple and secure way to access all our applications and data, so they can continue working.
What’s more, Ajuntament de Malgrat del Mar’s IT technicians no longer have to provide in-person or physical tech support in most cases; rather they can handle end user issues remotely through Parallels Secure Workspace.
"Parallels Secure Workspace not only offers flexibility and mobility for remote work but also reduces the need for in-person tech support, further saving time and costs."
