Eurowings, Lufthansa Group's low-cost airline, serves more than 40 million customers at 100 destinations around the world.
When the company's on-premises server farms, which provide application access and security to thousands of external and contract employees, needed upgrading, Eurowings decided to ditch its on-prem servers and embrace the cloud with Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop.
Tim Thomer, Enterprise Architect at Eurowings explains:. "We wanted a cloud VDI solution capable of running modern authentication, and which could match our existing infrastructure in terms of security and reliability. That's how we found Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop."
Read the Eurowings story of cloud adoption in this Microsoft article.
What prompted Eurowings to transition to Azure Virtual Desktop?
Eurowings recognized the need to modernize its IT landscape with a focus on cloud-first solutions, especially when their on-premises server farms required costly updates. The timing coincided with the airline's busy season, making it crucial to find a more efficient and scalable solution for remote application access and authentication for thousands of employees.
How does Azure Virtual Desktop enhance security for Eurowings?
Azure Virtual Desktop has allowed Eurowings to implement two-factor authentication using RSA security tokens, enhancing security compared to the previous hardware-dependent system. This shift enables employees to securely access applications from any device, anywhere, while additional security layers will be introduced as the company continues its cloud journey.
What cost savings has Eurowings achieved with Azure Virtual Desktop?
Eurowings anticipates reducing its operating costs by over 50 percent with Azure Virtual Desktop. The solution's scalability allows the company to adjust its infrastructure based on seasonal demand, and the multi-session capability enables multiple users to share resources on a single virtual machine, further driving down costs.