New IT Solution - Increases Productivity and Job Satisfaction at BO-VEST
A Leading Danish Housing Administration Firm Provides Employees with
New Flexibility Thanks to Billion's SSL VPN Solution

Three Independent Housing Societies Unites
In 2006 three major independent housing societies in Denmark, which own apartment buildings in the western Copenhagen suburbs Glostrup, Brondby, Greve, Ishoj and Albertslund, created a common administration company named BO-VEST. The purpose was to achieve large scale advantages, which may reduce the costs of running 10,000 publicly supported flats and housing for both the elder and younger generations. 32 housing offices refer to a new central administration office in Glostrup where the common IT unit is situated. Thus the largest housing society in the whole western outskirts of the Danish capital Copenhagen has been established.

New IT Demands
The most important task of the IT unit was to find a network solution that technically could tie together the local housing offices with the new head office. Moreover, key members of the staff were to be provided with a secure remote access in their homes, thus enabling them to work with applications and documents at their offices. In both cases, the goal was to achieve a flexible and reliable solution, which gives smooth daily routines to the IT unit and benefits the users. As the unification of the three housing societies required numerous costly investments, the IT solution had to be available at a reasonable price, explains Søren Scheller, IT manager at BO-VEST.

Billion's BiGuard SSL VPN Solution Outperforms the Rigid Tests
A large number of products and vendors were selected for testing by BO-VEST. Quite rapidly, the many tests demonstrated the competitive advantages of the gateway-router solutions of the network specialist Billion, and that Billion’s total solutions met the IT requirements of BO-VEST.

The 32 housing offices, located miles away from the new head quarter, are all using the industry programme Unik Bolig4, which in Denmark is a widely employed accounting and administration system for tenements. The programme enables the efficient managing of information, such as rent payments, garages, maintenances etc. Furthermore, in connection with tenants moving in or out of their flats, the local offices are daily storing picture files on a central file server.

In order to ensure a flexible operating procedure, where both tenants’ enquiries are quickly responded to and the administration in Glostrup is constantly updated, every local office is equipped with a BiGuard 10 gateway. The local offices and the head quarters in Glostrup are connected via an IPSec-tunnel - that is a secure, constantly open connection over the Internet. Right from the start, this connection has been steadily operating, Therefore, it has been decided to connect the local offices to the IP telephone net that has been in use at the Glostrup head quarters from the beginning in 2006.

Behind the SSL VPN abbreviation is a completely new way of establishing secure data connections over the Internet without the need of installing special VPN software on the client’s PC. SSL based VPN-connections enable all key staff members at BO-VEST, using any web browsers to establish secure and easy remote access via the Internet to both Microsoft Office applications, the files on the servers in Glostrup and the Unik Bolig4-software. Log on is simply done by clicking on the SSL VPN portal icon (accessible on a special web page) and typing a personal password.

In other words, employees may sit at home and have exactly the same access to mail, Internet, a word processing, a spreadsheet or a presentation application as if they were present in one of the local housing offices or in the administration head quarters in Glostrup.

"Although not strictly necessary, we have chosen to place a Citrix client on every client PC, thus changing them into "thin clients" working in the programme on the server here in Glostrup. In that way, we are keeping the transferred amount of data at the lowest possible level, and thus the operating speed at its highest level. This is done as there are no fast fibre connections all the way out to all the home users, only slower ADSL connections," Søren Scheller explains.

For the time being, approximately 40 users have a secure SSL VPN remote access from their homes, no matter whether they are working in one of the local offices or at the central administration in Glostrup. These users are top and middle management, administration and accounting staff and other key personnel. The access is being established by a single BiGuard S20 Dual-WAN SSL/IPSec VPN Gateway which allows up to 20 simultaneous SSL VPN tunnels as well as 30 IPSec VPN tunnels.

Employees Work From Their Home When They’d Like or Need to
According to Søren Scheller, the employees are happy that they may be working at home. During peak periods they may keep an eye on their work, even though they have to stay at home due to a slight flue or children being sick. In addition, if they have to work extra hours, the employees are not obliged to remain in the offices, but may comfortably handle all urgent cases from home. The Billion SSL VPN solution has provided the foundation for a growing productivity from every single key member of staff, and it increases the job satisfaction. In the end, this is benefiting the customers, in this case the tenants. They experience shorter waiting time, both in connection with enquiries and in the general administration of cases.

Saving Money with SSL VPN from Billion
According to Søren Scheller, the Billion SSL VPN solution has made it easier and quicker to establish a home connection. Previously, the IT unit had to set up a VPN router in every single home and to dedicate a specific IP-connection to each and everyone. Søren Scheller believes that a VPN solution for home users would not have been established at all, if the Billion SSL VPN-solution had not been available on the market. That is because it is a far more inexpensive method than alternative VPN technologies, and at the same time it is easier to implement and maintain.

"The BiGuard SSL VPN remote access is constantly working without any complaints at all, and naturally, as IT professionals we are very happy," adds Søren Scheller, who does not doubt that the users appreciate the stability. Scheller also brings attention to the advantages given by the very simple user interface, which is browser based. The IT staff at BO-VEST has developed a small manual for new home users of the SSL VPN solution from Billion. And almost every user, maintains Søren Scheller, is considering the system so simple that they - by using this guide - without any difficulties are able to make their first connection to the secure remote access.

Excellent support from Billion
Søren Scheller is especially happy about the support he gets from the representatives of Billion Nordic. "We have not met any serious problems yet, but if small things come up, we report them to the Billion office in Nordic. They solve them right away. In addition, the support from the Billion headquarter has been far better than I have been used to working with other manufacturers. But whenever we found a tiny bug, we shortly received a firmware upgrade from Billion headquarter. They also listened to our suggestions all the times. I know of no other network equipment provider but Billion, who is taking customers so seriously," he says. There is no doubt in his mind that the IT unit of BO-VEST has achieved its goals of establishing a communications network between the local housing offices, the home users and the central administration site. In the unification of the three housing societies focus was on price and performance, and thanks to the innovative and stable products of Billion the results were exactly as it was wished for from the beginning. "Billion delivers quality products at a reasonable price," Søren Scheller concludes.