One name – hundreds of user stories. ISL Online. Every month or so we reach out to the ones we value most – our users. Each tells its own unique story. This month we are visiting a lively capital of an enchanting European country, Slovenia, where we tried to get some insight into how their Ministry of Public Administration uses ISL Online. Here is the recap of what their senior advisor, Mr. Gregor Škerlep has revealed about the ISL Online remote desktop access, support and web conferencing software.

Name: Gregor Škerlep
Occupation: Senior advisor of Slovenian Ministry of Public Administration
Organization: Ministry of Public Administration
Location: Ljubljana, Slovenia
Solution employed: Corporate Server License with a Private Cloud

What was the reason you decided to implement ISL Online remote desktop support services?
At that time we had already introduced e-Government – a State Portal of the Republic of Slovenia (e-Uprava) as a sort of electronic entrance point to all the information concerning public administration as well as that concerning private sector. In order to manage a large number of database centres and system servers that have become even more complex after bringing numerous administration services and processes online, the Ministry of Public Administration has outsourced the management of some systems to different external IT companies. After that, we needed a reliable remote desktop support service that would guarantee access and support to the outsourced IT engineers, keep the Portal e-Uprava vital and solve all technical problems on time. This is where ISL Online has made life so much easier.

Why did you choose the Corporate Server License?
ISL Online’s Corporate Server License proved to be the perfect solution for the Ministry of Public Administration as it is designed for corporations and bigger institutions with large-scale needs for efficient client support over the Internet. Given the multiuse of ISL Light’s remote desktop we have accounted for 50 simultaneous connections during the peak hours, with the software being able to support up to 500 simultaneous support sessions. From this point of view it was essential for the software to support central directories, e.g. RADIUS, as a source of external authentication, which ISL Online’s Server License does nicely.

Can you let us in some specifics of ISL Online’s implementation?
The ISL Online technical team have installed one Corporate Server License on each of our two internal servers and created a Ministry of Public Administration Private Cloud. Due to the Private Cloud architecture, our remote support sessions are distributed among two servers according to their availability. Such system is fault tolerant and thus nearly 100% reliable, since it transfers all sessions, even the active ones, from one server to another if it comes to a server failure or a similar dysfunction. With all the data being duplicated due to the ISL Online’s distributed database, the system offers a back-up solution for possible data recovery.

What are ISL Online’s biggest benefits?
We solve almost 100% of all technical issues through ISL Light, which is around 36,000 sessions per year. And the frequency of usage is increasing as we tend to solve more and more issues this way. As regards the costs, I can roughly estimate our IT expenditures would have been about 50% higher if we hadn’t been using ISL Online remote support and collaboration software.
Let me give you an example. We have cut the cost of Secure ID cards (RSA) for different outsourced IT engineers that need to access and support state IT systems. With the help of ISL Light, they can access internal systems now through only one RSA key.
Besides, remote desktop support isn’t the only solution in use. We also organise regular online meetings with the ISL Groop software, which was included in the ISL Online All-in-One product suite, and save a considerable amount of time and costs.

How has the Ministry of Public Administration accepted the latest release of ISL Light for iOS mobile devices?
We instantly accepted it. Our internal system administrators and senior officials (Director General, Secretaries General) can now administer servers or access their own PC workstations from virtually anywhere using their iPads or iPhones.

About Ministry of Public Administration of Slovenia
The Ministry of Public Administration of Slovenia is a complex and large organisation that performs a wide array of tasks which include management of the state public administration and personnel as well as management of administration processes and database systems. The state administration employs more than 34,000 civil servants, while there are over 2 million Slovenian citizens.

Interested in sharing your story? Email me at nejafp@islonline.com.