Reference story - Eastbourne College
RES Software Removes Corruption at Eastbourne College!
“RES PowerFuse™ provides centralised administration of all aspects of the users’ workspace and enables a unified common desktop, whatever platform they log in to and wherever they log in from,” commented Robin Wilson, IT Manager, Eastbourne College. “The college’s users are now far more productive and I have significantly reduced the cost of ownership of my PC population. I know this because we no longer get any helpdesk calls on logon issues; quiet helpdesk = happy users!”
Overview
Eastbourne College is a co-educational school in which 310 boarders and 310 day pupils enjoy a full boarding experience in an inspiring and stimulating environment. Robin Wilson, IT Manager, is responsible for ensuring that the computing network is available 24x7 to both staff and students.
Challenge
The main challenge Mr Wilson faced was to be able to remove roaming profiles. Within his computing environment he had a mixture of Terminal Services, Thin Clients, and multiple OS platforms that were non-compatible. This melee of different platforms was resulting in profile corruption, which was causing severe user frustration. This in turn was leading to many helpdesk calls, so Mr Wilson embarked upon a search for a solution.
Solution
Having attended a London show where RES Software demonstrated RES PowerFuse, Mr Wilson immediately recognised it would resolve all of his issues. Whilst his incumbent solution had some elements of what RES PowerFuse provided, as did other solutions on the market, they were more expensive and not as comprehensive. Mr Wilson worked with his RES Software authorised partner, M-Tech Systems to evaluate RES PowerFuse. As he found the solution to be extremely intuitive, the evaluation process took only a week and he worked with M-Tech to install RES PowerFuse. Mr Wilson found M-Tech Systems to be extremely proficient and knowledgeable in RES Software solutions. The deployment was conducted over the summer vacation so there was no disruption to service.
Mr Wilson comments, “Whilst we are a college, IT has to run like a business. As such I have business parameters in place which RES PowerFuse enables, such as data and software integrity. Whilst user logons always work so my users are happy, they can no longer just add any old piece of software to their PC. We have a process in place that is managed within RES PowerFuse for new software deployments. This is a huge benefit for ensuring integrity of my network and systems.” He continues, “We are very much into proactive and reactive measurement at the college and RES Software solutions have enabled us to be far more proactive as we know what we will do, when we need to do it, and what time it will take to do it. The ease of management is something I didn’t have before, it is so comprehensive.”
Benefit
The biggest benefits to be gained through Eastbourne College’s RES Software deployment has been centralised administration and reduced technician time to visit end point devices, which has virtually been eliminated. Mr Wilson comments, “I now have a clearer focus on my network performance, superb logins, I know what is working and what is not and we have seriously reduced technical overhead.” The unified, common desktop that a user gets no matter where they log in from or what platform they are using has resulted in very satisfied users.
Mr Wilson has also rolled out Microsoft Office 2007, which was achieved using RES PowerFuse and RES Wisdom, “To configure the user profiles, including delivery of multiple email configurations to users’ desktops, within RES PowerFuse was a dream,” states Mr Wilson.
As Eastbourne College runs some proprietary software, this has sometimes resulted in some support calls to both RES Software and M-Tech Systems. “I cannot state how highly I regard the support we have received from RES Software and M-Tech Systems. I have given them some huge challenges and they have viewed my log files and come back with resolutions extremely quickly. By responding to my requests so promptly it means my users are happy and that means I am happy,” says Mr Wilson.
More recently, Mr Wilson deployed an extra 1,000 nodes to their network by providing network access to each and every student’s desk in the boarding and day houses. He thought that getting this live would be a challenge with logons and software deployment, but using RES PowerFuse and RES Wisdom “it all just happened instantly.”
Future Plans
Mr Wilson is looking at a number of new desktop transformations, namely Windows 7 and VDI. Trails are taking place currently and as and when a decision is made, RES PowerFuse will most certainly be the solution for the new desktop transformation for the college.
Mr Wilson summarises, “If you are adding hundreds of new users to your network, don’t worry. Just add them into Active Directory and let RES PowerFuse do the rest.”
"The college users are now far more productive and I have significantly reduced cost of ownership of my PC population."
Robin Wilson, IT Manager , UK