Metia 2008 Council Gears Up to Give Students Mobile ...



|Overview | | |“Instead of asking if they can have an application to use next term, teachers can request |

|Country or Region: United Kingdom | | |applications and receive them before their next lessons.” |

|Number of Employees: 15,500 | | |Chris Page, Technical Development Manager, Warwickshire County Council |

|Industry: Education—Primary and secondary | | | |

|schools | | | |

| | | | |

|Customer Profile | | | |

|The Warwickshire County Council Central ICT | | | |

|Development Service employs 35 staff who | | | |

|focus on providing ICT services to local | | | |

|schools—from technical support, to deploying | | | |

|advanced technology. | | | |

| | | | |

|Business Situation | | | |

|The council needed to upgrade its | | | |

|infrastructure to fulfil the need for faster | | | |

|technology in classrooms. It also wanted to | | | |

|build the foundations to support computers at| | | |

|home for every student. | | | |

| | | | |

|Solution | | | |

|Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 were | | | |

|deployed to provide cost-effective, | | | |

|progressive technology in Warwickshire | | | |

|schools. | | | |

| | | | |

|Benefits | | | |

|£100,000 saved a year | | | |

|Simplified adoption | | | |

|Increased efficiency | | | |

|Improved learning experience | | | |

|Anywhere, anytime access | | | |

| | | | |

| | | |Warwickshire County Council offers technical support to 249 schools in the United Kingdom (U.K.). As |

| | | |computers become core teaching and learning tools, the council needs to provide solutions that serve |

| | | |the increasing demand for technology for students, even as budgets become tighter. The council also |

| | | |wanted to build an infrastructure for students to access the network from home. By adopting Windows |

| | | |Server 2008 R2 with the Windows 7 operating system, the council streamlined centralised services, and|

| | | |immediately saved an estimated £100,000 (U.S.$148,000) a year in running costs, while decreasing its |

| | | |carbon footprint. The resulting infrastructure is now ready to provide the extra bandwidth needed as |

| | | |schools move towards equipping every student with a home computer. Ease of management means the |

| | | |council can increase the number of computers by four times without additional operating costs. |

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Situation

Warwickshire, in the West Midlands, in England, is best known as the birthplace of William Shakespeare. In fact, many great literary figures were born or educated in the county, including George Elliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Philip Larkin. It’s no surprise that quality education has long been a tradition in Warwickshire, home to the oldest surviving boys’ school in the country.

Education continues to be an important facet of life in Warwickshire as schools embrace 21st-century teaching and learning tools. Warwickshire County Council Central ICT Development Service has risen to this challenge since 1999 by offering schools the latest technology available, with a strong emphasis on Microsoft products. Chris Page, Technical Development Manager at Warwickshire County Council, says: “ICT has become so important to the process of learning that on one occasion a school closed for the day because the technology wasn’t working.”

It was clear that ICT was becoming mission-critical in the classroom. As the council faced increasing pressure to provide better and faster technology, its strategy has expanded to ensure that every student can have an individual home computer within the next two years. Any solution had to be flexible enough to allow for demand caused by this expansion of provision. It also had to be scalable enough to use in a variety of learning environments. Considering the limited resources in the public sector, any solution adopted had to be cost effective, while also supporting the council’s sustainability agenda.

Solution

When Page heard about the Windows Server 2008 R2 early adopter programme, he immediately realised it would offer good value to schools. He spent a day with his team at Microsoft U.K. headquarters in Reading, evaluating how Windows Server 2008 R2 would best fit the council’s needs.

Several schools in Warwickshire had an immediate use for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7. Microsoft recommended Microsoft Gold Certified Partner OCSL to help the team conduct a pilot programme at Ash Green School, using 25 Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) suites connected to a single server. Anthony Lander, Senior Systems Engineer at Warwickshire County Council, says: “We’ve built up a good Microsoft skill set over the years, but we didn’t have expertise in VDI technology. Working with OCSL was a valuable experience because its experts could fill in the gaps in our knowledge.”

After an initial meeting in July 2009, the complete deployment took just six weeks. OCSL spent a week at the Warwickshire County Council office reviewing requirements for deployment. The OCSL team then documented all requirements for the Warwickshire team to follow and wrote a technical white paper. Jane Ayres, Director at OCSL, says: “Although this particular implementation was niche, it was very quick. Our main task was to integrate the school’s custom-built applications, and make sure they were working in the way the client needed them to work. We virtualised the applications on Hyper-V, ensuring they will always be available.”

Lander and his team deployed the system at the school and trained the on-site technician within two weeks. Now students and staff can access Windows 7 anywhere on campus and from home. Students using the computer lab equipped with VDI suites see their own individual desktops as if they each had their own computer.

Central services at Warwickshire County Council Central ICT Development Service are running on Windows Server 2008 R2. ICT staff can now monitor and maintain the systems at Ash Green and the four other schools that have already deployed Windows Server 2008 R2. Windows Automated Installation Kit and the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit add low-touch installation features to the system, so ICT administrators can deploy systems from a central location.

Benefits

Streamlined centralised services provide a cost-effective way to put progressive technology into Warwickshire schools. Technology advances increase more rapidly every year along with educational requirements, so the flexibility and scalability of Windows Server 2008 R2 is critical. As educators, schools often feel responsible for preserving resources for future generations, promoting the green IT agenda as much as possible.

Efficient Systems Save More Than £100,000 a Year

Virtualised systems run more servers with less equipment, decreasing power and cooling costs by an estimated £100,000 (U.S.$148,000) a year. “Twenty virtualised servers run on one physical server, so in addition to cutting electricity costs, we’ll buy less hardware—and those aren’t the only savings we’re going to see,” says Page.

The council will also save money on equipment at each school. Windows 7 needs less memory resource to operate, so personal and portable computers will not need to be replaced as often. With VDI technology, whole classrooms of students can work individually from one physical server hosting multiple operating systems with multiple monitors—resulting in even more savings.

Choosing Microsoft subscription licensing for education—the Schools Agreement—further adds to the savings, while virtualising applications gives schools access to more software while costing less.

Ease of Deployment Simplifies Adoption

A familiar Microsoft interface combined with the expertise of the in-house and OCSL team simplified deployment. “One of the most obvious things I noticed about the Windows Server 2008 R2 adoption was the smooth deployment,” says Ayres. “Warwickshire can now replicate it with confidence at other schools.”

This ease of deployment was an important factor—fast turnaround is paramount in schools, where all deployments need to be completed during the school holidays.

Streamlined Management Saves Time and Increases Efficiency

A centralised system, running a virtualised environment saves valuable resources and improves the services schools receive. For example, Warwickshire can now employ one person to monitor filtering systems for 200 schools. The council could increase the number of computers four times without additional operating costs. Alwyn Waine, Service Development Officer for Warwickshire County Council, says: “This way, we deliver top-quality services with significant savings.”

With Windows Automated Installation Kit and Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, Warwickshire can create a central image with applications delivered by App-V, and deploy it without having to visit every desktop. “This saves a lot of time,” says Page. “With App-V, instead of asking if they can have an application to use next term, teachers can request applications and receive them before their next lessons.”

Streamlined System Increases Productivity and Improves Learning Experience

Streamlined systems in Windows 7 make it easy to access files and frequently used applications. Tasks such as printing and saving files are also quicker and easier. Staff spend less time on administrative tasks and more time improving the learning experience for students.

When lessons are conducted using classroom computers, many students download the same files from the school’s central server at the same time. “With Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, we can use BranchCache to reduce strain on the network by cutting down on the amount of traffic. Now, without computer delays, teachers can keep up the pace of lessons, and students are less likely to be distracted,” says Lander.

Anywhere, Anytime Access Improves the Learning experience

When teachers and students take work home with them, the DirectAccess feature provided by Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 will reduce the time it takes to log on to the system remotely. Page says: “With Windows 7 we can provide a secure, consistent user environment. Users will be able to log on at home or in the airport exactly as they do at school.”

DirectAccess will also help Warwickshire contain costs. Page says: “For children that are in the care of the authority, we currently deploy a virtual private network (VPN) solution. We hope to replace this with DirectAccess. This will save £100 a student as we will no longer need the VPN hardware and licence.”

Security is also important in an educational setting. Children of all ages are conducting research and accessing learning materials online, while administrative data and student records are stored and accessed electronically. Combined, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 provide extra security features for important data and applications.

Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows Server 2008 R2 is the latest version of the Windows Server operating system from Microsoft. With Windows Server 2008 R2, you can create solutions that are easier to plan, deploy, and manage than with previous versions of Windows Server. Building on the features, security, reliability, and performance provided by Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2 extends connectivity and control to local and remote resources. This means that your organisation can benefit from reduced costs and increased efficiencies gained through enhanced management and control over resources across the enterprise.

For more information, go to:

WindowsServer2008R2[pic]

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Software and Services

■ Microsoft Server Product Portfolio

− Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise

− Windows 7

■ Technologies

− Hyper-V

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“With Windows 7 we can provide a secure, consistent user environment. Users will be able to log on at home or in the airport exactly as they do at school.”

Chris Page, Technical Development Manager, Warwickshire County Council

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This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published December 2009 | | |

For More Information

For further information about Microsoft products and services, please visit:

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or call 0870 60 10 100*

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For more information about OCSL products and services, call (0845) 605 2100 or visit the Web site at:

ocsl.co.uk

For more information about Warwickshire County Council products and services, call (01926) 410 410 or visit the Web site at:

.uk

“Twenty virtualised servers run on one physical server, so in addition to cutting electricity costs, we’ll buy less hardware—and those aren’t the only savings we’re going to see.”

Chris Page, Technical Development Manager, Warwickshire County Council

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“One of the most obvious things I noticed about the Windows Server 2008 R2 adoption was the smooth deployment. Warwickshire can now replicate it with confidence at other schools.”

Jane Ayres, Director, OCSL

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