The University of York

Students Get More Study Time with Sun Secure Global Desktop Solution

The University of York was founded in 1963 with 200 students. Since then, it has expanded to 11,000 students and has over 30 academic departments and research centers. From its inception, the University has concentrated on having strong viable departments and teaching and research of the highest quality. York’s teaching has received many accolades, and York and Cambridge top the teaching league with the highest scores in official teaching assessments.

Customer Challenges

Enable students to work more in their study bedrooms
Improve the content and functionality of the student network service and support the aspiration of anywhere/anytime/any device learning
Centrally manage desktops while reducing the administrative workload
Lower the cost of power for the desktop environment

Solution

Secure access to server-based applications from a wide range of popular desktop PCs, providing student study bedrooms with centrally managed, reliable access to both routine applications and those needed for special research purposes.

Business Results

Ability to provision extra PCs for one class from a central location, without taking time to install applications on individual machines
Empowering students to get all their studying done in one place, resulting in more effective study time
Ability to assign IT administrators to more value-added tasks rather than installing software on student, faculty and administrator machines

Products and Services

Story Details

Like many universities that place a high premium on the role of the computer in the student’s curriculum, University of York has developed a PC-based culture. Students and teachers use PCs in the library and in student dorms to access e-mail and the Web. However, certain students, faculty and administrators depend on their PCs for much more. They use computers for extensive research and more complex applications. The central Computing Service offers to manage PCs centrally. However, not all users buy the service. They manage the applications they need by themselves, or by special request to the centralized Computing Service or by using facilities which are already provisioned to meet their needs.

This did not always work out to the convenience of students in their study bedrooms. Wanting to use specialized research applications, students would have to leave their rooms and seek out a PC already provisioned with the appropriate application.

" We found at least 10 unexpected uses for Sun Secure Global Desktop outside the realm of the study bedroom, driving flexibility into the computing infrastructure. For instance, for temporary access to applications in classrooms, Sun Secure Global Desktop is a very successful solution. In fact, I expect it to be a success throughout the campus. "

— Andrew Smith, Head of Systems, Computing Service, The University of York

Administrators, wanting to use an application they didn’t have, would ask for the application from the Computing Service, which would have to go through the time-consuming and unreliable process of installing applications remotely. Inconsistent or incomplete upgrades and mistakes in installation made the outcome uncertain and increased the administrative workload for the Computing Service, spreading thin the resources available for accomplishing more value-added tasks.

The University of York needed a centralized provisioning solution that could deliver to users the applications they needed with minimal intervention from IT staff. The Computing Service evaluated a number of options, but chose Sun Secure Global Desktop software because of its simplicity of management, built-in support for both Windows and UNIX applications, and, importantly, the availability of a campus license, which made Sun Secure Global Desktop software highly attractive from a commercial point of view.

The university bought a campus license for Sun Secure Global Desktop software, running the application on Sun Fire T1000 servers. The Sun Fire T1000 servers with CoolThreads technology have been shown to triple performance, while cutting power and space consumption by 3X. In an initial trial, 50 students began receiving access to their applications via Sun Secure Global Desktop. The feedback thus far has been very positive. As for administrative applications, the university is also in the process of standardizing their delivery using Sun Secure Global Desktop software, to a population of 2,000 desktops.

The Computing Service has also taken its first tentative steps towards using Sun Ray 270 virtual display clients to trim the excess processing power and power costs of PCs and simplify IT management. The Computing Service is optimistic that these goals will be met. It has purchased 30 Sun Ray 270 virtual display clients and deployed them in student kiosks that dot the campus.

In the meantime, students are enjoying a more efficient study experience without having to search the campus for the computer equipped with the application they need to do their research. The more study time they can get, the more successful they may be in their academic careers.