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Children in Florida who sufferabuse, abandonment or neglectare assigned an advocate from theStatewide Guardian ad LitemProgram to make sure the minorshave someone looking out fortheir welfare.The program has 54 officesorganized under the state's 20judicial circuits. During the program's26-year history, each of thestate's circuits operated the officesindependently.In 2004, the program wasremoved from under the umbrellaof the state Supreme Court andmade independent. The newlyconsolidated program operatesfrom Tallahassee, and one of itsfirst missions was to unify andstandardize the offices' technology,said Johnny White, chief information officerfor the Statewide Guardian ad LitemProgram.White said he discovered that each ofthe state's 20 judicial circuit offices hadvarying technology infrastructures. E-mail,networks, hardware and more were notstandardized."Every office was different, and we wantedto consolidate the program's information,e-mail, data and other things," White said."We had to build a network, but we werelimited in the resources and money."After considering several ways to buildthe network, officials decided that deliveringWeb-based applications via virtualizedservers would be the best fit.They chose Citrix Systems Inc.'s XenAppfor the project. XenApp is a MicrosoftWindows-based application delivery systemthat has both client-side and server-sideapplication virtualization. The architecturelets organizations centralize applicationsand data in secure data centers.XenApp eliminates the need to install ormanage applications on individual devices,making application testing, provisioning,management and support easier and lesscostly."Citrix is about delivering applications toany person on any device anywhere anddoing it easily and cost-effectively," saidDavid Podwojski, director of Citrix's stateand local government and educationbusiness.The flexibility was important to Floridaofficials because the program's nearly 850employees are spread throughout the state."XenApp means that any person in theworld can virtually use any computer orcomputing device that will provide themwith a browser," Podwojski said."They connect that browser to the sourceof the applications and use [it] as if it wereresident on that device," he said. "It doesn'tmatter whether that device inherently has the ability to run those applications or notbecause they run on a server at some remotelocation."Another plus is that when users log off acomputer or device, no data is left on it, so alost or stolen computer does not become asecurity risk.For the StatewideGuardian ad LitemProgram, building atraditional networkwith a server at eachoffice and T1 lines connectingthose officeswould have been tooexpensive and difficultto manage."Just the monthly and yearly recurringconnectivity costs and the staff costs weremore than we had," White said. "At the time,it was just myself, and we had just under400 employees. So it was going to be difficultfor a barely nothing IT staff and littlemoney to support such a large network."T1 lines for each of the 54 offices wouldhave cost about $900 a month per office.One advantage White had was theInternet network for state governmentoffices. With Citrix, the program's officescould use that network or other county-runInternet-based networks to connect to theCitrix system in Tallahassee.The program's Citrix system runs on aMicrosoft backbone network with Windows2003 Servers.The other cost theoffice couldn't affordwas maintaining andupgrading traditionalPCs. With Citrix, applicationupgrades andpatches are done onthe server, not the individualcomputers. Andbecause the computers only have to run aWeb browser, they do not need to be upgradedat the normal three- to four-year interval."As far as staffing, we were looking at havingtwo to three people, depending on thesize of the circuit, staffing each circuit,"White said. "You're talking an extra 30 to 40people just to support the network, whichwe couldn't afford."With Citrix, four people manage theentire network from Tallahassee.The virtualization system also serves asthe office's continuity-of-operations plan,White said. As long as the system's serversare protected, employees can access the dataand applications they need via any computerand Internet connection.Employees access an office suite withCitrix and a few homegrown applications,including a case management system and atime sheet and time management system.White said moving away from a traditionalinformation technology infrastructure canbe difficult for organizations.He recommends that government agenciesand their systems integrator partnersexamine how money is being spent to managesystems. If too many resources are goinginto upgrading and patching desktop PCs,officials should consider some sort of applicationdelivery system.Despite some initial concerns about theuser experience, the approach has workedfor the guardian program, White said."We've found they really can't tell the differencebetween being on a traditional networkversus getting those resources from Citrix."