Informed ChoICeEnterprise Elementary School District uses Dell expertise to help bring technology to the classroom, and standardizes on Dell PCs and storage to boost uptime by 15 percent

Customer ProfILe Country: United States

Industry: Education

Founded: 1868

number oF employees: 464

number oF students: 3,386

Web Address: www.eesd.net

ChaLLenge

An important classroom technology initiative requires choosing the correct technology from an array of alternatives. In addition, IT efficiency suffers from a diverse mix of desktop PCs and a server-based storage system that no longer keeps pace with growth.

soLutIon

The Dell team arranges side-by-side vendor presentations to help the district make objective classroom technology choices. Standardizing on Dell™ OptiPlex™ desktops and a Dell/EMC storage area network (SAN) increases IT efficiency and performance.

BenefIts

Get It Faster

Dell team reduces SAN installation time •from a week to just one day

New server deployment time reduced to •five minutes using SAN-based templates

run It better

Key applications run up to 65 percent •faster with the Dell/EMC SAN

Virtualization and the Dell/EMC SAN help •boost uptime by an estimated 15 percent for a 99.9 percent uptime total

New classroom technologies help •enhance education at Enterprise schools

Grow It smarter

•StandardizingonDelldesktop computers frees up IT staff to plan for future growth

SOLUTIONSBACKUP/RECOVERY/ARCHIVING•CLIENT•

Enterprise Elementary School District in California has a distinguished history extending back to 1868, when it was established in a one-room schoolhouse. Today, the district’s eight schools and 3,386 students make it the second-largest school district—and growing—in the city of Redding. The community is committed to providing children with excellent educational opportunities, and citizens recently passed a local bond measure that has helped give educational quality a boost by bringing more technology to the classroom.

The success of the bond measure led to an important question: which classroom technologies are best? To determine the most useful and effective equipment to acquire, the district formed a technology committee. “We researched and brainstormed what we could bring into the classroom that would help children the most,” says James D. Wolfe, IT manager at Enterprise Elementary School District. “Student response systems, electronic whiteboards, and mobile electronic slates came to the top of the list.”

Teachers were especially enthusiastic about the slates, handheld devices that combine the functionality of a PC and the capabilities of instructional software, enabling teachers to dynamically present a lesson from anywhere in the classroom. An electronic whiteboard displays the same lesson at the front of the room. The district decided to combine these devices with electronic “clickers” students can use to respond to questions. Connected wirelessly to the teacher’s computer, the student response units enable instant assessment of lesson comprehension.

array of CLassroom teChnoLogy ChoICes makes seLeCtIon dIffICuLtOnce the types of technologies were chosen, the district confronted the difficult task of selecting specific vendors’ products. “We found it was quite a challenge to know which vendors to go to,” says Wolfe. “There didn’t seem to be a consensus among independent technology suppliers as to which products offered the best performance, reliability, or value.”

server-Based storage and a mIxed desktoP envIronment hInder It effICIenCyIn addition to classroom technology, the Enterprise IT team had other challenges it needed to address using the available bond funding. Those challenges included replacing a server-based data storage system that was no longer keeping pace with the

district’s growth. “We were storing everything directly on our servers,” says Wolfe. “But with the growth we were experiencing, it no longer made sense to buy a new server every time we needed more storage space.”

The district had also accumulated a diverse mix of desktop computers over the years that were inefficient and expensive to maintain. The IT team needed to manage multiple types of PCs from six manufacturers, along with various operating systems. The inconsistency made troubleshooting difficult and time-consuming. “Dealing with multiple suppliers and warranties also made parts ordering a nightmare,” says Wolfe. “At one point, we were a month behind on repair service because of how long it took to get parts.”

deLL heLPs the dIstrICt make oBjeCtIve CLassroom teChnoLogy ChoICesThe district turned to Dell for advice. “We had been using Dell PowerEdge servers for several years, and the Dell team had always been helpful in suggesting technologies to meet our needs,” says Wolfe. “We asked them for help evaluating the classroom devices. Since Dell doesn’t offer the slates, boards, or response systems themselves, we felt they would be able to take an objective approach.”

The Dell team, headed by Dean MacKay and Medina Willis, began by helping the Enterprise IT team narrow its list of classroom technology providers to two finalists, and then arranged for both of the vendors to make presentations to the district. “We gave them each an hour to make their case and found that one really stood out dramatically over the other,” says Wolfe. “We chose eInstruction Interwrite boards, slates, and response systems with radio frequency technology, which we felt provided the best value and mobility. The Dell team’s willingness to help us make an educated decision about classroom tools instead of pushing one solution made a huge difference.”

hoW It Works

hardWare

Dell• ™ OptiPlex™ 960 desktop computers with Intel® Core™2 processors

Dell PowerEdge• ™ 2950 servers with Intel Xeon® processors

Dell/EMC CX4-120 Fibre Channel storage •area network (SAN)

eInstruction Interwrite electronic boards •and slates

eInstruction Classroom Response System•

softWare

EMC SnapView• ™

Microsoft• ® Windows Server® 2003 Enterprise

VMware• ® ESX server

servICes

Dell Global Infrastructure •Consulting Services

- Assessment and Planning

- SAN Installation

Dell ProSupport•

“the deLL team reaLLy Went aBove and Beyond to heLP us reaCh our goaL of enhanCIng eduCatIon through the use of teChnoLogy.”James D. Wolfe, information technology manager, Enterprise Elementary School District

enterPrIse team seLeCts deLL oPtIPLex desktoPs for PerformanCe and staBILItyDell consultants also recommended that the district standardize its desktop computers to reduce management costs and complexity. The Enterprise IT team compared multiple options and decided on the Dell OptiPlex 960 desktop computer based on Intel® Core™2 processors as its new standard. “The Dell computers definitely beat the others we considered in terms of price/performance,” says Wolfe. “We also liked Dell’s long-term commitment to the OptiPlex line, which gives us a stable, dependable platform for continually refreshing our installed base. We can count on not having to change software images every time we order new PCs.”

deLL/emC san Chosen to CentraLIze and uPgrade storageChoosing a new storage system was next. The Enterprise IT staff decided to virtualize some of its data center servers using VMware® ESX, which required centralized storage. The district also needed to accommodate growing storage volumes. The Dell team recommended a Dell/EMC CX4-120 SAN with 4 Gb Fibre Channel technology, connected to three of the district’s Dell PowerEdge™ 2950 servers, to run the virtual machines. “The Dell/EMC SAN has taken our storage to a whole new level,” says Wolfe. “It’s enabled us to move from individual server-based storage to a scalable pool of storage. We can easily add disks to the array when we need more capacity.”

deLL team reduCes san InstaLLatIon tIme from a Week to just one dayWith the district IT team already spread thin covering multiple school locations, Dell sent a team to install the new SAN and delivered significant time savings. “It would have taken us a week to do the work on our own because we had to fit it in between other activities,” says Wolfe. “The Dell installers had

a lot of expertise in Fibre Channel SANs, and had it completed in a day. Our staff was free to maintain day-to-day operations, run the help desk, and work on our Web site while Dell did the install.”

aPPLICatIons run uP to 65 PerCent faster WIth the deLL/emC sanThe Enterprise IT team is seeing application performance improvements of up to 65 percent now that the Dell/EMC SAN is in place. The high-speed Fibre Channel arrays have made a big difference in important applications that previously had slow response times. “Our school bus scheduling software can now pull up routes instantaneously, and the Web-based application for our district library serves up much more quickly,” says Wolfe. “The Dell/EMC SAN has virtually eliminated the slow response problems we had with our Web-based and database-dependent applications.”

neW server dePLoyment tIme reduCed to onLy fIve mInutesWith the new SAN, the IT team can now deploy a new virtual server in approximately five minutes instead of spending half a day. “We have templates on the SAN of any server image we might need,” says Wolfe. “We can simply activate one of those templates, and it takes about five minutes to go live with a new server. Previously, it would take a half a day to build it. We’ve become much more agile at responding to our internal customers’ needs—it’s a snap.”

vIrtuaLIzatIon and deLL/emC san heLP Boost uPtIme By an estImated 15 PerCentThe district IT team estimates it has reduced user downtime by approximately 15 percent since implementing virtualization and the Dell/EMC SAN. If a physical server goes down, the workload automatically moves to one of the other physical servers attached to the SAN. “The teacher or school

administration user is unaware of the failure and doesn’t experience any unproductive downtime,” says Wolfe. “We easily have 99.9 percent uptime now. If our users can’t reach an application, it’s not because of the servers.”

User downtime has also been reduced because the IT team can use the SnapView™ feature built into the Dell/EMC SAN to rapidly recover data. “For example, we now snapshot a server before we patch it,” says Wolfe. “If the patch fails, we can roll back to the snapshot taken before the patch and use it to restore the server almost instantaneously. Our old practice required uninstalling the patch and restoring from backup, which was cumbersome and time-consuming.”

standardIzIng on deLL desktoP ComPuters eLImInates servICe BaCkLog, frees uP It staffBy standardizing on Dell desktops, the district is reducing the number of different systems and images it must maintain. As a result, the IT team has been able to save time and eliminate the previous service backlog, while holding the line on new staff additions. “Before we standardized on Dell, this was a much more reactive department,” says Wolfe. “We were always trying to put out fires. Now we’ve made our job simpler and more manageable, and we can rely on next-day turnaround on parts from Dell.”

With the time saved, the IT team is able to concentrate on more strategic goals and getting ready for future growth. The team has outfitted 85 classrooms with boards, slates, student response systems, and new desktops in the first phase of its classroom initiative, and is already planning for another 115 classrooms in the second phase. “We’re also making long-range plans to extend the virtualization in our data center,” says Wolfe. “That’s going to help us reduce the costs of space, power, and cooling as our infrastructure needs continue to grow.”

“the deLL/emC san has vIrtuaLLy eLImInated the sLoW resPonse ProBLems We had WIth our WeB-Based and dataBase-dePendent aPPLICatIons.”James D. Wolfe, information technology manager, Enterprise Elementary School District

August 2009. © 2009 Dell, Inc. Dell is a trademark of Dell Inc. Intel, the Intel logo, Intel Xeon, Intel Core 2 Duo, and Intel Centrino are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States or other countries. Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and names or their products. This case study is for informational purposes only. DELL MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS CASE STUDY. 10007713

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neW teChnoLogIes heLP enhanCe eduCatIon at enterPrIse sChooLsEnterprise district teachers are enthusiastic about the new classroom tools. “The technologies we selected with Dell’s help allow the teacher to move around the classroom and get everyone’s attention,” says Wolfe. “You don’t lose those students in the back row, because you can control your computer and whiteboard presentation from anywhere in the room.”

Wolfe credits Dell with helping the IT team enhance educational opportunities for district students. “Kids are technology natives—they grow up with it in their daily lives,” says Wolfe. “But then they have to unwire when they come

to school. If you can bring technology into the classroom, you can get them more excited about learning, provide a richer educational experience, and ultimately help boost student achievement. The Dell team really went above and beyond to help us reach our goal of enhancing education through the use of technology.”

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“the deLL team’s WILLIngness to heLP us make an eduCated deCIsIon aBout CLassroom tooLs Instead of PushIng one soLutIon made a huge dIfferenCe.”James D. Wolfe, information technology manager, Enterprise Elementary School District