Case Study: Lower Saxony Tax Administration achieves stable, centrally managed CONSENSUS rollout across 67 tax offices with Citrix XenServer

XenServer as virtualization platform for new control software

The Lower Saxony tax administration undertook the largest IT changeover in its history to roll out the nationwide CONSENSUS I tax software to about 12,500 users across 67 offices. A key challenge was that CONSENSUS I required 32‑bit SLES 9 while the existing servers ran 64‑bit SLES 9, so the organization needed a compatible, manageable platform to deploy the new application across many sites.

They chose Citrix XenServer for its cost-effectiveness and features and worked with Fujitsu to deploy roughly 160 XenServer hosts (two per site) with shared NetApp FAS2040 storage, centrally managed from Hannover. The infrastructure supported the Jan 9, 2012 rollout smoothly, delivering stable, trouble‑free operation, simpler administration and delegated management, and the OFD now plans to migrate additional services into the virtual environment.