Colchester Sixth Form College
College Background 3000 students Mainly Full Time A Level 200 IB students Last inspection October 2007 1000 PCs/Laptops 60+ servers
Green Developments – Mid-Site Building opened August 2008 Rain water collection Solar panels
IT Issues - PCs Wide range of PCs – Suppliers/models Maintenance/support issues Software installation issues Requests for variety of software Hardware support Needed to rationalise/simplify
PC’s - Solutions Standardisation on one type of PC Minimum specification in accordance with ILT Strategy Looked at several suppliers – Dell, RM etc. Decided on the RM EcoQuiet Education based company Good track record with the College Good case design Used common motherboard in a variety of cases Chose against DVD/Floppy but can use USB based if required
RM One EcoQuiet All in one box to make installation easier Green features Based on low power motherboards (laptops) Environmentally friendly designed case Removable monitor (though the base cannot be purchased without the monitor) Glass screen Graffiti proof case Carry handle Awards
RM One – Power comparison
Energy Saving – RM EcoQuiet Series
IT Issues - Servers Increasing demand for servers Fault tolerance Moodle Multiple types/suppliers Replacement costs Manage of support Space issues Air conditioning Noise Installation / repair problems UPS costs Backups – lots of tapes
Road to virtualisation Trial of MS Virtual Server 2005 Trial of VMWare Virtualisation of Library/Personnel/Finance systems Move to ESX with greater fault tolerance and OpenFiler SAN Increased servers Move to EMC Clarrion SAN
Server Allocation Original 42 servers End of year 6 ESX Servers (running 60+ virtual servers) SAN 2 ‘Remote’ access servers
Benefits of Virtualisation Fewer physical servers Less power consumption Lower maintenance/replacement costs More space Easier to add systems Quick to set up a virtual server to install/test Increased reliability Less physical servers to go wrong If issue occurs then can move the virtual servers easily (VMotion) Easier to upgrade servers Add to farm, move virtual servers, remove old server