Steve Young, Chief Technology Officer, Judson ISD
Ted Jongbloed, Director of Technology Services, Waller ISD
Daniel Domain, Technology Director, Mildred ISD
Don Hindsley, Technology Coordinator, Whiteface ISD
y, gy ,

CTO Clinic
Austin TX, June 22, 2009
Judson ISD
nComputing X Series
Desktop Virtualization
Steve Young, Chief Technology Officer, Judson ISD

Judson ISD pain points with providing increased
computer access to students
Cost
Laptops and desktops have high per seat acquisition cost
Maintenance
Computers have many common parts that fail or need
maintenance
Increasing computer technician staff not an option
g p p
Extended warranties can be very costly
Network Access
Many classrooms have limited network drops
y p
Cabling and new switches are very expensive
Electrical Capacity
y pp g
Many older schools have trouble supporting more than a
couple of computers per classroom
Often no easy way to increase electrical capacity
A/C is very expensive for schools and adding more full
computers substantially raises A/C demand

Solutions & Possibilities
Thin clients
Good in practice, but we have no spare server room space and eventually
would need more network staff (another option we could not choose)
( p )
Server rooms are VERY costly, need lots of electricity, and A/C
Often the cost for thin clients hardware was not significantly less than a
low cost desktop
Laptops
Typically a higher acquisition costs when equipped with similar
components as a desktop
High total cost of ownership (TCO)
Repairs take longer
Parts more proprietary
More theft prone
Load Linux variant on old computers
Cheap/free solution – no OS cost
We have no Linux management tools and none offer functionality we
require at no cost
Still require expensive network ports and high electricity (higher than
modern CPU)
Increase number of service calls and need for repair technicians

What Judson ISD selected: The nComputing
X Series
What it is?
Modified thi li t
M difi d thin client
It virtualizes the host OS and
shares the host’s resources
host s
How does it work?
Install a PCI card in host machine
Connect up to 3 terminals (multi
boxes) per PCI card via cat 5 cable
)p
Connect monitor, keyboard, and
mouse to each multi box

Deployment details
What Judson ISD did and where we did it
Decided to focus X Series deployments in three areas:
Elementary school classrooms
Middle school classrooms
Each classroom end up with 4 student
workstations
Library student stations
Lib t d t t ti
How many have we deployed in year 1?
418 sets – which created an additional 1,254 computer seats
1 254
How many have we deployed in year 2?
343 sets – which created an additional 1,029 computer seats

Lower Acquisition Costs
( 3,044 computing seats )
Acquisition for a PC only deployment $ 2,374,320
Possible additional network growth $ 776,220
Acquisition cost for X Series Deployment
Shared PC's $ 593,580
Access Terminals (X Series) $ 152,200
Extra Monitors $ 285,375
Keyboards & Mice $ 45,660
MS OS Licensing $ 108,594
108 594
Total X Series Acquisition Cost $ 1,185,409
Savings of 50%

Energy Cost Comparison
Judson ISD's School Year Energy Cost Comparison
$30.00
$25.00
$ 0 00
$20.00
$15.00
$10.00
$5.00
$-
Annual Energy Cost Annual Energy Cost Annual Energy Cost JISD's Annual Energy
of P3 and CRT of a "green" Dual of Dual Core w/ 3 Cost Per Seat using
Monitor Core PC w/LCD terminals nComputing X-Series

Energy Cost Savings (Green Computing)
One Year Energy Cost & Savings for Judson ISD for 3044
Total Computing Seats
$ ,
$90,000 $ ,
$84,014
$80,000
$70,000
$61,354
$60,000
$50,000
$40,000
$35 852
$35,852
$30,000 $22,661
$20,000 $13,191
$ 3 9
$10,000
$
$-
Yearly operating Yearly operating Yearly operating Energy savings by Energy savings
cost for 3044 P3 cost for 3044 green cost - Using Core using X Series with using X Series
PC's Core Duo Duo's hosting X Core Duo (instead of instead of all an
Series P3) Core Duo fleet

Less Electrical Capacity Needed
Many schools lack electrical infrastructure to support large
numbers of computers
Often impractical or cost prohibitive to bring in increased
electrical service
One X Series set with 1 green dual core and 3 terminals use
about the same electricity as a single Pentium 3 system with
a CRT monitor.
This allows a schools to double number of computer seats in
classrooms, while reducing electrical needs by 50%
This means a 4 computer classroom can replace outdated
systems with modern ones:
And cut acquisition costs 50%
Cut energy usage 73%

Less A/C Needed
Less power consumption equates to less heat generated
per computing seat
ti t
Heat output is cut the same percentage as energy usage
This means heat output compared to traditional PC s can
PC’s
reduce heat output by 73% or higher.
This translates into large savings on A/C bills or on
retrofit of A/C systems to service hot rooms
Less $$ is spent on building A/C per computing seat

Less e-waste Created
e-
Long term, there is much less e-waste for disposal, i.e.
there are 3 less CPU’s
CPU s
Less to dispose of means:
Less pollution
Lower disposal costs

Less Network Ports Needed
Less ports and drops can equate to at least $1200
L dd l
savings per X Series set, if drops needed for
increased computer access
access.
How is this money saved?
Network switches can be very costly at more than $150 per port
Copper prices have been rapidly rising (a key component of
network cables)
Labor to install cabling is expensive (from $75 to $200 per drop)
g p ( $ $ p p)
Switches are not always very “green” – and can
consume a lot of electricity, as well as generate a lot
of heat, so reducing numbers of switch ports can
help schools become greener

CTO Clinic
Austin TX, June 22,
A stin TX J ne 22 2009
Waller ISD
Virtualization Project
Ted Jongbloed, Director of Technology Services, Waller ISD

Waller ISD Overview
4A District, 5,150 Students, 8 campuses
US 290, Northwest Houston
290
Traditional small town, rural district… becoming a mixed
district, with farming, ranching, light industry, growing
, g, g, g y, g g
suburbs
Growing Hispanic and Black population
Not i h
N rich, not poor
Slow growth, 100+ a year
Limited technology in community
1,650 computers in district

Spring 2007
District Network Center totally obsolete
Ran out of power…total power failure on three occasions
power total
Insufficient cooling…temperature reached 95 degrees
No more rack room…but…needed to add four servers for
new Student, Finance, and Special Education applications
One application / one server dilemma
Solution…May 2007 Bond Election

Spring 2008
Bond passes…included new Technology Center
Bond tied up in year-long legal challenge
year long
Temporary fixes for power and cooling
BUT still out of rack space and on the edge of building
power
Four new servers purchased…need to do something for new
Student and Finance Systems
S d d Fi S
New Solution…Try Virtualization

May 2008
Quick proof of concept
Send Network Manager to VMWare Training
Take four DL 380 G5 Servers and convert to VMWare
Migrate campus servers and others to VMWare
Training h l
T i i wheel approach…removes skepticism
h k i i
Identifies need for more equipment
Need a SAN and Vmotion
iSCSI versus Fiber Channel question
VM needs lots of memory and NIC’s
Need management tools

Summer 2008
By end of Summer moved NOC to VMWare
Installed Dell/EMC AX4 SAN…ability to add drives and enclosures
SAN ability
over time
Added additional severs over next six months…1 to 4 ratio…Retire
old servers
Used VMWare Tools to Virtualized existing servers
Cooling, Power and Space problems eliminated… still have
obsolete NOC

Today
VMWare Status
49 Virtual Servers
11 Physical Hosts
VRanger and Foglight
Only seven stand-alone servers left
Down to two racks…but still have space problems
Storage requirements continue to grow with Sharepoint and
IP Security system requirements
Other Virtualization
Also implemented Ncomputing X300/350 Virtualization
solution for campus computers…120 systems deployed by
August 2009

Other Observations
No initial cost savings
11 Servers $58,377
$58 377
Additional Memory $12,441
SAN $42,827
VMWare Licenses
VMW Li $33,396
$33 396
VMWare Support $19,932
Management Tools $20,100
Total $186,073
Unforeseen advantages
Replaced servers used as IP Security Servers
Replaced equipment used to create backup center
Virtual Machines make data center disaster planning actually
possible
ibl
Ability to add new servers…fast and painless

Summary
Virtualization solved an immediate problem
Virtualization tools streamlined day-to-day management of
day to day
servers
Without budget support movement to VM is difficult
g pp
Microsoft entry (and others) may drive down prices
X300 solution solved sustainment problem at Elementary
Campuses

CTO Clinic
Austin TX, June 22, 2009
Why Go Virtual?
y
A Server Virtualization Story
Daniel Domain, Technology Director, Mildred ISD

Problem Points
Continuing need for servers
Financial Constraints
Storage Issues
Hardware
Data
Technological Growth
Stability

Possible solutions
Continue with the status quo
Continue laying out money for each additional server
Look into offsite storage
Consider Virtualization

Best Solutions

Buy In?
Total buy-in cost…
$20,000.00
$20 000 00 – Host Servers (3)
$40,000.00 – SAN Solution (iSCSI Equalogic)
$10,000.00 – Initial VM-Ware Software
VM-Ware for host servers (V-Sphere)
Virtual Center for Control Server (Already owned)
Total Cost of Ownership - $70,000.00 (approx.)

$$$$$Savings$$$$$
To Date:
Over $170 000 00 in server costs alone
$170,000.00
$30,000.00
$30 000 00 in UPS costs
Approx. $16,000.00 in shipping costs
pp $ , pp g

Uncalculated savings
Cooling
Power
Storage
Physical
Data
More time on task as result of less down time

Major Benefits
More Uptime
Manual virtual server migration
M l it l i ti
Automatic virtual server migration
More centralized management
VC Client on any machine
Web Access
Less Cost
Ease of growth
More Versatile
Software vs Hardware
vs.
Addition of servers at no additional cost

CTO Clinic
Austin TX, June 22, 2009
Citrix: Why & How?
Don Hindsley, Technology Coordinator, Whiteface CISD

Why?
•Budget reduction
•Administrative mandate to maintain
current accessibility
(99.65% up-time 24/7),
including maintenance
•Projected Budget Reduction: 33%

Initial Costs
Five Citrix servers (Dell PowerEdge
Five Citrix servers (D ll P Ed 6850)
Upgrade: All Components Redundant 74,145.00 14,829.00 (each)
Citrix Presentation Server licenses 37,650.00
Equipment (3000 VA UPS, rack, …) 4,145.00
Configuration, physical set‐up,
trouble‐shooting software
g 12,000.00
,
$ 127,940.00
Number of students in District: 350
Number of Teachers & Students On-Line at Low: 50 High: 120
any Time:

Projected Savings
w/o Citrix w/ Citrix
Desktop Purchases
D kt P h 110,000
110 000 15,000
15 000
Technician time 10,000 2,000
Down Time for desktops in classrooms 1‐2 days Almost none
(Desktops
replaced within
the hour)
$ 120,000
$ 120 000 17,000
17 000
6‐8 Years
Time Frame ¼ Every
with good
(Desktop replacement):
(Desktop replacement): Year
performance

An occasional technical issue:
We were glad to have our tech support
company.
p y
Issues:
- connecting to printers
- a few Exchange email issues
- older software won’t work

On the positive side
•Budget reduction:
• 1/3rd ended up at 1/4th. Many teachers and
administrators insisted on new computers every three
years . . .
• Life span of existing student desktops:
• Projected 6-8 years, but it seems we’re going to be able
to make it 8-10 years before replacement. Why?
• Add d Xt d cards t i
Added Xtenda d to increase number of
b f
workstations in classrooms, giving us more “spares”
waiting to be used.
• After a year of study and trials, we have reduced the
installed size of Windows-XP from 32 GB down to 2.4
GB – the computers boot up faster and run faster with
only the minimum required windows apps running.
www.mandrytechnology.com

On the positive side2
• Down time & availability:
• Maintaining 99%+ uptime on all computers with
computers,
reduced budget
• Desktops merely swapped as all are generic.
Just have to re-name and connect to default
printer.
• With Citrix, teachers now have access to ALL of
their Applications and files at any computer IN
THE WORLD.
WORLD

On the positive side3
• Technician:
• Desktops are repaired whenever time is available (never
an emergency)
• Apps are installed only on 5 Citrix servers
• 5 installs instead of 420
• 5 updates instead of 420
• Users don’t mess with apps!!
pp
• Users don’t need or have administrative rights to the
local machine (no downloads, including spyware and
viruses)
• Only Windows-XP, Flash, Shockwave, Java and a
few other required apps installed on local machine.
• Software licensing is TOTALLY controlled and verifiable!