US BREWER CHOSES INNOVATIVE DESKTOP VIRTUALISATION
We are told that Boulevard Brewing Company Ripped Out Their PCs in Favour of Innovative Desktop Virtualisation
Boulevard Brewing Company, based in Kansas City, is one of the largest craft breweries in the US. Three years ago the company constructed a new brewhouse which brought with it a new software system for controlling the flow of ingredients. While the new software system performed, the workstations in use proved to be too few and far between throughout the plant, too expensive to replicate and alarmingly inconsistent. The workstations locked up on several occasions which meant ingredients were stalled and soured, costing the company thousands of dollars each time this happened.
“The PCs were locally controlling processes and represented a huge liability because if something goes down, the whole process stops. If we go down, we can’t make beer,” said Tony Lux, Purveyor of Technology at Boulevard.
This prompted the brewery to rip out their PCs and implement Pano Logic’s zero client desk top virtualization solution. This is an all-in-one hardware and software solution that radically centralises desktop computing. It allows the brewers to move ingredients forward and measure progress seamlessly as they now connect to the core system from strategically located dummy devices about the size of a Big Mac. This device contains no CPU, no memory, no operating system, no drivers, no software and no moving parts and connects over a local area network to the main servers.
Boulevard Brewing is said to be the first brewery to operate completely on virtualization technologies. They already had virtualised servers and manage a data center with three VMware ESX hosts running 35 virtual machines.
Lux added: “Now that we’ve ripped out the PCs and replaced them with Pano Logic virtual desktops, we haven’t had a single mishap and we were also able to afford to expand the number of locations where plant staff and brewers can access the system to perform the necessary tasks.”
Boulevard has installed 15 Pano Logic virtual desktops strategically positioned throughout the brewery. The convenience of having more system access points located throughout the brewery means that plant workers and brewers no longer have to manage the controls from a workstation and then race down several flights of stairs to visually monitor the equipment and operation.
Boulevard was formed in 1989 using both old and new brewing techniques. They produce six beers year-round: Pale Ale, Unfiltered Wheat Beer, Lunar Ale, Single-Wide I.P.A., Bully! Porter, and Dry Stout. Their seasonal beers include: Irish Ale in early spring, Maibock in the late spring, ZŌN in summer, Bob’s ’47 in the fall, and the Nutcracker in the winter.
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