Centrepoint

Helping Young People Rebuild their Lives, One Sun Ray at a Time

Centrepoint is the leading national UK based charity working to improve the lives of socially excluded homeless young people. It provides several different types of accommodation services such as emergency night shelters as well as specialist services. Through Centrepoint’s support, these young people are able to continue their education and develop their careers so they can become self-sufficient and regain their place in society.

Customer Challenges

Extend 24x7 IT and Internet access to every bedroom at the Salters Foyer Service location in London
Provide a safe online environment for residents to study and socialize
Deliver a cost-effective, low-maintenance, robust and secure IT solution

Solution

Centrepoint implemented Sun Ray virtual display client desktops with on-site Sun servers running some desktop applications and Sun Remote Managed Service.

Business Results

All residents now have 24x7 IT and Internet access to support their studies and careers
Young people have used this new level of access to become more independent
Smooth operation of solution through the use of Sun services

Products and Services

Story Details

Centrepoint believes access to IT is vital in helping homeless young people rebuild their lives through education and recreation. Around 75 percent of the 44 residents at the charity’s Salters Foyer Service in central London were involved in learning courses and projects. However, they shared just a few PCs --that did not provide 24x7 access and were located in a common area--to support their efforts. Keen to increase its IT provision, Centrepoint contacted Sun for assistance.

Sun and Centrepoint listened to input from the young residents and together determined that the optimal solution providing the broadest Internet and IT access was a Sun Ray thin client solution that included some key desktop applications, on-site Sun servers and Sun Remote Managed Service.

" It’s been an excellent project. Sun and its Partners invested time and expertise, talking to our young people to find out their needs--and then delivering the ideal solution. "

— Stuart Rogers, Director of Business Improvement, Centrepoint

As a result of a successful trial of the solution, Centrepoint built a strong business case for a full deployment, which it presented to potential sponsors. Sun itself chose to back the project because it is committed to bridging the 'digital divide.' Sun awarded an Academic Excellence grant and promised to match funds from other sponsors as well.

With funding in place, implementation began to provide Internet and application access to all 44 rooms at the Salters location, in addition to 6 displays in the common areas. SCC, a Sun Partner, supplied equipment and completed the complex challenge of concealing cables within the historic Victorian building. SCC's consultants also advised on the network configuration and provided expert support as the Sun team rolled out the Sun Ray solution.

The Sun solution consists of Sun Ray 270 and 170 virtual display clients running on Sun Fire V210 servers with the Solaris 10 Operating System and Java Desktop Display. A Sun Fire X2100 server with AMD processors, runs Linux and hosts the StarOffice and Mozilla applications. To address the charity’s need to balance responsible online access with the freedoms of residents over 18 years old, another Sun Partner, The Cutter Project, provided filtering using open source software. Sun remote server management services round out the solution by proactively managing the servers to avoid problems.

Residents have been quick to benefit. Internet access and StarOffice applications support their studies and careers in subjects such as computing, science, music, art and fashion. Young people have become more independent because they are not tied to a college or a communal space. Because the desktop clients are in bedrooms, the Sun Ray’s reduced noise and heat pollution have also been important. Due to Sun services, the charity reports that operations have been smooth, with the biggest challenge being forgotten passwords.

As its next move, Centrepoint intends to continue rolling out the Sun Ray virtual display clients to its other London service locations as part of a charity-wide learning provision initiative called Foundations for Life.