About Wasatch School District
Wasatch School District is one of 40 school districts in Utah and has nearly 4,400 students, 260 teachers and 320 administrators and support staff. The district provides high bandwidth for each of its seven schools.
Challenge
School districts across the country are looking for ways to provide easy and affordable computer access to all their students. Wasatch School District was providing only one computer for every six students and wanted to increase computer availability, while staying within its limited IT budget. The district was facing increased licensing costs for Microsoft Windows and lacked funding for new hardware required for any future software upgrades.
The district also has a small IT staff, with one person per 600 computers. The IT staff was spending much of its time patching and troubleshooting its Windows-based systems, and its network was vulnerable to virus attacks which could shut it down for days. The district needed to upgrade its environment to a more reliable and secure platform that would reduce its administration time and costs.
Novell Solution
After evaluating several Linux distributions, Wasatch School District selected SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop.
"We evaluated many Linux options and even considered putting together our own Linux bundle, but found everything we needed in SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop," said Karl Buchanan, technology director for Wasatch School District. "The Linux desktop runs on every piece of hardware we own, so there was no need to invest in expensive hardware upgrades."
With the ability to leverage existing hardware, the district created nine new computer labs with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop-based workstations. The stability of Linux makes the desktops easier to manage and the IT staff no longer has to re-image machines every few weeks because of virus attacks.
"We could never have supported as many computer labs with Microsoft Windows desktops," said Buchanan. "SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop also performs far better than our Windows desktops and has more features."
The district is now replacing Microsoft Office with the OpenOffice.org productivity suite on its desktops, dramatically reducing licensing costs. Students like the familiar look and feel of the OpenOffice.org applications and teachers also benefit from the ease of use. The district also offers its users online training from BrainStorm, a Novell training partner.
"Students love SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, particularly the ability to play media content in multiple windows," said Buchanan. "Because a Linux desktop is so cost-effective, we can give computer access to far more students than before."
Because SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop does not require high-end hardware, the district can also afford to provide more laptops to its teachers. A reliable Linux desktop allows teachers to take their laptops home and be more productive, enhancing the quality of education they can deliver.
For a secure and reliable network, the district uses Novell Open Enterprise Server running on SUSE Linux Enterprise. This combination provides the district advanced network features on a cost-effective, reliable Linux platform. Using Novell Client for Linux on each desktop, the district can give each student a single log in to a personalized desktop. Students can also access and store their own files on the network, based on user identity.
With Novell iFolder®, teachers can access their files locally from their laptop or through a Web browser from a seven terabyte network drive, whether they are at school or at home. Novell iPrint helps users easily locate and print to any printer in their building, eliminating the need for IT staff to provide printer access.
"Our Linux environment is so stable that managing our machines is a dream–we rarely have to touch them," said Buchanan. "With an open enterprise, we have all kinds of options with open source software that can be fine-tuned to fit our environment, rather than settle for expensive, off-the-shelf applications that never quite work right."
Results
With SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, Wasatch School District's five-person IT staff has doubled its number of computer labs and now provides far greater computer access to its students. The district has increased the number of students using computer labs by 60 percent.
Using SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, the IT staff can easily set up and administer new servers, and no longer has worry about regular patching. A reliable Linux platform has helped the district reduce administration time and costs by 45 percent.
"Without Novell, we could never have provided the additional new computers labs for our students and we would have spent all our time managing the ones we already had," said Buchanan. "No other vendor comes close to what Novell delivers for us."