University of Westminster

Sun Ray Virtual Display Clients Lower Costs and Deliver Access to Broad Array of Applications to Students

With four main campuses located throughout London, U.K, the University of Westminster has more than 24,000 students who are studying for undergraduate and post-graduate degrees, conducting research and completing professional programs in areas such as bioscience, business, computer science and law. The university was founded in 1838 as the Polytechnic Institution and since that time has been an innovator in developing new educational programs for students, businesses and professionals.

Customer Challenges

Reduce desktop management, support and maintenance costs
Provide a reliable, high availability, high performance infrastructure
Access multiple platforms from any desktop

Solution

This university’s computer science department leveraged Sun virtual display clients to improve performance and provide access to a broad array of applications and operating systems while lowering costs and streamlining management.

Business Results

Lowered IT costs for the desktop environment
Improved access to a broad range of applications and operating systems
Enhanced the user experience
Provided a flexible, scalable platform to support future needs

Products and Services

Story Details

Within the University of Westminster, the Cavendish School of Computer Science (CSCS) is home to the electronics, mathematics, information systems, software engineering, and technology and design departments. With a growing student body that has a diverse range of sophisticated computing needs, the IT department needed to ensure that the environment delivered the performance and robust capabilities that students and faculty expected. Solutions also needed to be oriented toward the future so that the next generation of knowledge workers will understand a broad range of current technologies as they enter the workforce.

The university had 54 older Sun SPARC-based workstations that had performed well over its 7-year lifespan. However, it was time for some new technology because the workstations did not have the performance capabilities of newer technologies and new software applications were not supported on the workstations. Despite budget constraints, Thierry Delaitre, systems and services manager at the CSCS, needed to implement a major technology upgrade while ensuring that the technology met performance and advanced computing objectives.

" The Sun Ray Virtual Display Client provides the IT staff with a high performance, low cost and low stress answer to our challenge of balancing performance and broad application access with cost. But more importantly, users have high speed and reliable access to all the applications they need. "

— Thierry Delaitre, Systems and Services Manager, Cavendish School of Computer Science, University of Westminster

Delaitre considered options such as Microsoft Windows-based PCs running on x64 servers, PCs running Linux and Sun UltraSPARC workstations. All of these options were discounted due to the maintenance and support issues inherent in individual thick clients. The university avoided the Windows solution because it wanted to provide its students with a broad exposure to different operating systems and needed to support graduate students’ advanced needs.

It was at this point that Delaitre learned about the Sun Ray technology and thought it offered distinct advantages. Because there is no desktop operating system, applications and data to manage, the maintenance and support burden would be much less. It was a low-cost solution that delivered the performance the university needed and provided users with access to a flexible range of operating systems and applications.

In the university’s solution, Sun Ray virtual display clients connect via a 100-Base T network to a Sun Fire E450 server. This server houses the StarOffice applications and also connects to the university’s network. Four USB ports on the client enable printers and other devices to be attached, providing a user experience that is comparable to a PC. The solution also leveraged smartcard technology to enable students to slot their card into a Sun Ray client and immediately access a wide range of applications, including course-specific applications, StarOffice software, Windows applications and Web resources.

“Users are happy with the solution because they have the ability to use the Hot Desk feature to access applications from any Sun Ray client. The systems support staff can concentrate its efforts on the servers, where all the software and data now resides, and the network. The Sun Ray client's—and therefore, the users—pretty much look after themselves,” concludes Delaitre.