Wiewelhove Leverages Modern VDI to Support Medicine Manufacturing

To meet rising demand for its services and modernize its aging IT infrastructure, Wiewelhove replaced its Citrix environment with Omnissa Horizon® and Omnissa App Volumes. With support from partner GID, the transition was seamless and milestone driven. According to Wiewelhove, the deployment not only improves user experience and operational agility, but also strengthens the company’s ability to plan long term and continue to produce high-quality medicines to support public health.

Driving quality and flexibility in pharma production

Based in Germany, Wiewelhove is a successful, medium-sized contract manufacturer known for quality, efficiency, and innovation in developing medicines taken by mouth in a solid form. As demand for its services continues to rise, the company has expanded its production capabilities and broadened its service portfolio to include new capacities such as film coating and blister packaging. Wiewelhove produces more than 4.5 billion individual doses annually, including 800 million capsules, 500 tons of film-coated tablets and 600 tons of sugar-coated tablets. Ongoing investment in advanced IT infrastructure and manufacturing excellence remains central to Wiewelhove’s strategy for sustaining its strong market position.

Aging platform strained by modern demands

Wiewelhove was operating a legacy Citrix terminal server environment that had become increasingly misaligned with the manufacturer’s modern IT demands. As the business expanded, performance bottlenecks and planning limitations became increasingly disruptive—particularly because licensing costs had to be renegotiated annually, creating year- to-year uncertainty and making it difficult to forecast IT budgets or scale infrastructure with confidence.

Video and audio-heavy apps like Microsoft Teams performed poorly, hampering day-to-day employee productivity. According to Wiewelhove, annual Citrix license renegotiations generated an administrative burden and created business uncertainty, complicating long-term IT planning. And the upcoming end of Microsoft Office support for terminal servers further threatened the platform’s viability.

As a result, Wiewelhove’s IT team faced mounting pressure to deliver a stable, digital workspace that could support its 400 users and 40+ apps. Continuing with the existing setup risked increased disruption, financial instability, and and a declining quality of service for employees. To meet both operational and strategic goals, Wiewelhove needed a high performance, reliable alternative that could simplify IT management while delivering a consistent, high-quality user experience.

Modernizing with VDI and partnering for seamless implementation

Working closely with Omnissa partner GID, Wiewelhove transitioned from its Citrix terminal server model to a modern VDI environment built on Horizon. This included App Volumes which significantly reduced the need for multiple golden images— standardized master system templates used to deploy virtual desktops—and simplified app management.

The Horizon VDI runs on a Dell VxRail 4-node cluster with NVIDIA GPUs. Wiewelhove replaced its aging Windows Server 2016 setup with a Windows 11-based environment, delivering a noticeable uplift in app responsiveness and multimedia performance when combined with modern hardware.

With GID’s support, Wiewelhove carried out a phased rollout: from presales and proof-of-concept to pilot deployments, administration testing, and a staged production launch. GID played a hands-on technical leadership role throughout, driving milestone-based execution and ensuring delivery at every stage.

“The collaboration with GID was consistently collaborative, solution-oriented, and on equal terms—deadlines were met, challenges were mastered together, and the project was implemented professionally,” says Stefan Etgeton, Head of IT, Wiewelhove.

Higher performance, better user experience, and scalable IT

Wiewelhove reports that with Horizon in place, the manufacturer now delivers a smoother, more responsive user experience for both GPU-accelerated and standard virtual desktops, right across the company. For example, Document Management System (DMS) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are more stable and efficient, while Microsoft Teams and multimedia tools perform seamlessly, boosting daily productivity, according to Etgeton.

Wiewelhove staff report they now experience fewer delays and interruptions, making everyday tasks—from collaborating to switching between apps—faster, smoother, and less frustrating.

For IT, the centralized management afforded by Horizon and App Volumes have simplified operations. The IT team can push updates faster, maintain consistent desktop environments, and manage fewer golden images, all greatly reducing administrative overhead.

Wiewelhove also notes the Horizon deployment brings long-term planning confidence. Unlike the legacy Citrix model, the new environment ensures predictable performance and licensing for the next five years—freeing the team from the uncertainty of annual renegotiations and enabling them to focus on forward-looking IT strategy rather than firefighting technical or financial surprises.

“By switching to Horizon and the new VDI infrastructure, we were not only able to significantly improve the performance of critical apps, but also noticeably simplify IT administration—a real step towards futureproofing,” says Etgeton.

Omnissa and GID remain strategic partners in helping Wiewelhove scale its IT operations with confidence and flexibility. With a modern, reliable infrastructure in place, the company is better positioned to support the development and production of critical medicines—reinforcing its contribution to patient care and public health.