About Windsor Unified School District
Windsor Unified School District is comprised of seven schools, four of which are California distinguished schools, and has 5,200 students and 250 teachers and staff. Windsor High School has been named one of California's top ten most promising high schools by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Challenge
Windsor Unified School District had a mixed Microsoft Windows and Macintosh environment that was proving too costly to maintain. Upgrading this combined environment would cost more than $100,000 and consume too much of the district's limited IT budget. The district wanted to find an alternative approach to improve the computing options for its students and staff, while also keeping costs under control.
Without centralized desktop management, the district's small IT staff was traveling much of its time to manage 10 different computer labs, as well as individual workstations. Automating desktop management would free up the IT staff from routine maintenance work.
Novell Solution
After evaluating ways to reduce IT costs, Windsor Unified School District decided to standardize its environment on SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server with thin-client desktops running SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop.
"As soon as we saw SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, we knew it was the right answer," said Heather Carver, director of Technology and Information Services for Windsor Unified School District. "We used to spend a lot of money on special software to get our platforms to talk to one another. Linux eliminates all platform connectivity issues and gives us the best of both the PC and Macintosh worlds."
Using Wyse terminals, the district can now offer its students and staff a thin-client SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop running the OpenOffice.org productivity suite. Ericom software allows the terminals to run the district's existing Microsoft Windows applications including Type to Learn, Reading Counts and KidPix.
"We can install SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop for a fraction of the cost of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office," said Carver. "Our technology partner, KIS, was able to procure all the hardware we needed in a matter of days. They were fantastic and continue to work with us to keep our network up to date."
Students now have a user-friendly SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop and teachers can log in to their desktops from home to enter grades or create reports. The IT staff uses the system management tools included in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server to remotely manage its thin client terminals.
Running Novell GroupWise® on Linux has practically eliminated e-mail downtime, which used to be nearly 40 percent. GroupWise Mobile Server allows teachers and principals to access their e-mail through their PDAs and phones so they no longer have to take their laptops home.
"With Novell GroupWise, we are 100 percent more protected against spam, hackers and viruses than anything else," said Carver. "Microsoft Exchange would have cost us an additional $80,000 and we would be much more vulnerable to attacks."
Novell ZENworks® allows a small IT staff to manage the entire district from a central location, which has dramatically reduced travel time. The staff can distribute new applications in a matter of hours, instead of several days, and can image new machines in a matter of minutes.
"Novell ZENworks is a huge timesaver for our team who used to be on the road nearly 75 percent of the time," said Carver. "We are far more productive without them driving around all day."
Moving forward, the district plans to implement a Novell identity management solution to synchronize user information across applications and automate user management. Identity management will also be at the heart of a portal that will give parents the ability to register their children, as well check grades and attendance.
Results
By moving to a thin-client architecture with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, Windsor Unified School District has reduced its hardware costs by 75 percent and software costs by nearly 95 percent. With fewer servers, the district has also reduced its energy costs by 25 percent. All of this saving accounts for nearly 50 percent of the district's IT budget that it can now use for other projects.
Centralized desktop management with Novell ZENworks has reduced IT travel time by at least 50 percent and eliminated the need to hire additional staff to manage a growing environment. With remote management, the helpdesk can resolve problems nearly 90 percent faster, and without leaving their desks.
"Our Novell solutions paid for themselves immediately with dramatic reductions in hardware, software licensing and travel costs," said Carver. "We could not give our students and teachers the same access to technology using any other vendor."