Like many British schools, Camden School for girls in North London was in urgent need of upgrading its ICT systems and providing wider access to computing to students and teachers on campus. However, budget constraints and issues with aging PC desktops that, over time, would require constant upkeep and maintenance meant that replacing all PCs with new computers would require high capital costs which the school couldn’t afford.
The ICT department needed a solution that can increase the lifetime of existing ICT assets, while reducing maintenance and capital costs. The school decided to explore desktop virtualisation as an alternative option to traditional computing that doesn’t require huge capital investment. However, traditional thin clients proved to be very complex to mange and implement, and required additional spending on third party hardware components that added extra costs to the technology implementation.
After extensive product testing, Camden School for Girls chose NComputing L300 Ethernet-based thin clients that offered the highest user density per pound sterling compared to any PC or thin client in the market. Moreover, the solution provided extensive features and remote management and support that significantly simplified IT maintenance and provided more flexible access to computing devices. Since NComputing’s technology enables a single server to be shared by multiple users simultaneously, students and teachers were able to benefit from remote computing access across the campus.
The deployment of the thin clients has enabled the school to reduce capital costs by 75%, whilst lowering energy use and maintenance spending. To find out more about this project, read the full case study here.