Sunnyvale, Calif.-November 15,
2011-Public schools today must deal with increased student
enrollment, ongoing state budget cuts, and limited resources, which
require them to do more with less. Additionally, they need to
figure out how to manage the explosive growth in mobile device and
personal laptop usage by students and faculty. Oak Hills Local
School District in western Ohio was faced with these challenges and
realized that smart decisions made about its IT infrastructure
would enable it to deliver anytime, anywhere learning to each of
its high school students in light of ongoing budget and resource
constraints. As a result, Oak Hills made the transition to a
virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) to centrally manage and
deliver desktops to students and educators from its data center,
which is built on a NetApp® (NASDAQ: NTAP), VMware (NYSE:
VMW), and Cisco® foundation.
Oak Hills was in the midst of a technology
refresh and needed to retire more than 850 aging laptop and desktop
computers. Unfortunately, buying a new laptop for each of its more
than 3,000 high school students was not a viable option. Instead,
Oak Hills wanted a solution to maximize the number of devices the
district could afford while augmenting the desktop pool by letting
students use personal laptops and mobile devices to access learning
applications.
After an extensive evaluation of technology
vendors, Oak Hills determined that NetApp, VMware, and Cisco
delivered a VDI solution that would enhance the school's learning
environment, reduce costs, and provide flexibility to cope with
future growth. To help with the implementation, Oak Hills worked
closely with NetApp, VMware, and Cisco reseller Champion Solutions
Group.
News Highlights
- NetApp, VMware, and Cisco delivered a FlexPod™ data
center solution that is designed to provide Oak Hills with IT and
capital savings of more than $1.27 million in three years, covering
hardware, space, energy, and administration. This level of savings
will enable resources and money to be directed toward other
projects within the district. VMware View™ built on FlexPod
is a pretested data center solution that utilizes a flexible,
scalable, shared infrastructure based on Cisco Unified Computing
System™ servers, Cisco Nexus® switches, VMware
vSphere® and VMware View cloud infrastructure and virtual
desktop technologies, and NetApp unified storage systems running
Data ONTAP®.
- NetApp's unique storage efficiency technologies are optimized
for virtual environments and require Oak Hills to use only 12TB of
total storage to support its entire deployment. These efficiencies
help Oak Hills reduce its power and cooling footprint and lower
overall costs.
- Oak Hills' VDI provides students and teachers with 24/7 secure
access to learning systems from a variety of school- and
student-owned devices and personal laptops, transforming when,
where, and how students learn.
- By moving to desktop virtualization and enabling students to
take advantage of the follow-me virtual desktop, Oak Hills has been
able to move closer to its goal of providing students with a
one-to-one student-to-PC ratio and has made it possible for
students to catch up with coursework off campus and improve their
grades.
- NetApp's unified architecture provides Oak Hills with the
flexibility required to address the growing and changing needs of
its infrastructure without having to rip and replace with a new
storage foundation, saving both valuable money and resources along
the way.
- Because desktop virtualization enables desktop assets to be
decoupled from one another and the end point and be pushed into the
data center where they can be securely and more effectively
managed, Oak Hills is able to conduct desktop and application
updates with less time and resources than it could prior to the
virtual desktop implementation. Previous desktop updates required
four days' worth of work and up to six dedicated IT staff members.
The process can now be done in 4-8 hours by just one staff member,
providing the district IT staff with the flexibility to better
support the district's 9 schools, 150 teachers, and 8,100
students.
- NetApp Flash Cache technology enables the high school to
seamlessly handle the heavy input/output loads that occur during
peak access times, like during daily desktop startups and at the
beginning of class, when many students log in simultaneously. This
prevents the infrastructure from freezing up and enables
uninterrupted student access to critical learning tools.
Supporting Quotes
- Tracy Pirkle, director of Technology & eLearning,
Oak Hills Local School District
"Providing our schools with the best possible learning environment
is Oak Hills' number-one priority, and we realize that our IT
infrastructure is a critical part of the equation. The deep
integration between NetApp, Cisco, and VMware technologies provided
us with an ideal solution that not only allowed us to take our
e-learning initiative to the next level but enabled us to greatly
reduce our overall costs and build on a foundation that will be
able to grow with us and meet the ever-changing needs of our
students and faculty."
- Regina Kunkle, vice president of State and Local
Government and Higher Education (SLED), NetApp
"Schools at all levels are looking for new and innovative ways to
deliver advanced learning opportunities to students while staying
within tight budget parameters. Oak Hills' decision to move to a
virtual desktop infrastructure built on a NetApp storage foundation
is a great example of how smart IT decisions can be the driving
force to help schools achieve their goals. NetApp is 100% committed
to working with our education customers to enable them to achieve
the IT efficiency and flexibility they need to thrive in today's
challenging environment."
- Vittorio Viarengo, vice president, End-User Computing,
VMware
"Oak Hills is a fantastic example of how schools can leverage IT in
education to do more with less. With VMware View™ virtual
desktops, Oak Hills can foster anytime, anywhere learning by
getting campus tools and applications in the hands of more
students. Students can enjoy the flexibility of using their own
devices. Teachers can expect a more dependable, consistent
technology and can focus their time and effort on helping students.
And IT can streamline desktop maintenance and reduce the cost of
services. The net result can be a more productive learning
environment for students and teachers, all provided with fewer
required resources, time and money."
Additional Resources
About NetApp
NetApp creates innovative storage and data management solutions
that accelerate business breakthroughs and deliver outstanding cost
efficiency. Discover NetApp's passion for helping companies around
the world go further, faster at www.netapp.com.
About VMware
VMware is the leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure
solutions that enable businesses to thrive in the Cloud Era.
Customers rely on VMware to help them transform the way they build,
deliver and consume Information Technology resources in a manner
that is evolutionary and based on their specific needs. With 2010
revenues of $2.9 billion, VMware has more than 300,000 customers
and 25,000 partners. The company is headquartered in Silicon Valley
with offices throughout the world and can be found online at
www.vmware.com.
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