Transcript of a discussion on how the combination of hyperconverged infrastructure and virtual desktop infrastructure are making the task of deploying and maintaining the latest end-user workspaces far simpler and cheaper than ever.

1. Page 1 of 10
Path to Modern PC Client Automation
is Paved with Hyperconverged
infrastructure for New Jersey College
Transcript of a discussion on how the combination of hyperconverged infrastructure and
virtual desktop infrastructure are making the task of deploying and maintaining the latest
end-user workspaces far simpler and cheaper than ever.
Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Get the mobile app. Download the
transcript. Sponsor: Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
Dana Gardner: Hello, and welcome to the next edition of the BriefingsDirect Voice of the
Customer podcast series. I’m Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions,
your host and moderator for this ongoing discussion on digital transformation success
stories.
Our next hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) use case discussion explores how a New
Jersey college has embarked on the time-saving, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)
modernization journey. We will now hear how the combination of HCI and VDI are
making the task of deploying and maintaining the latest end-user devices far simpler --
and cheaper than ever before.
Here to help us explore the embrace of a new digital and data-driven culture from the
desktop to the hyper-efficient core, are our guests. Please join me in welcoming Tom
Gillon, Director of Network and User Services at County College of Morris (CCM) in
Randolph, New Jersey. Welcome, Tom.
Tom Gillon: Thank you.
Gardner: We are also with Michael Gilchrist, Assistant Director
of Network Systems at County College of Morris (CCM).
Welcome, Michael.
Michael Gilchrist: Thank you.
Gardner: And we are here with Felise Katz, CEO of PKA
Technologies, Inc. Welcome, Felise.
Felise Katz: Thanks, Dana.
Gardner: What are the trends driving your needs at County College of Morris to
modernize and simplify your personal computer (PC) architecture?
Gillon

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Flexibility for all, always
Gillon: We need to be flexible and agile in terms of getting software to the students,
when they need it, where they need it.
With physical infrastructure that really isn’t
possible. So we realized that VDI was the solution
to meet our goals -- to get the software where the
students need it, when they need it, and so that’s a
top trend that got us to this point.
Gardner: And is the simplicity of VDI deployments something you are looking at
universally, or is this more specific to just students?
Gillon: We are looking to deploy VDI all throughout the college: Faculty, staff, and
students. We started out with a pilot of 300 units that we mostly put out in labs and in
common areas for the students. But now we are replacing older PCs that the faculty and
staff use as well.
Gardner: VDI has been around for a while, and for the first few years there was a lot of
promise, but there was also some lag from complications in that certain apps and media
wouldn’t run properly; there were network degradation issues. We’ve worked through a
lot of that, but what are some of your top concerns, Michael, when it comes to some of
those higher-order infrastructure performance issues that you have to conquer before
you get to the proper payoff from VDI?
Get Your Gorilla Guide
To HCI Implementation Strategies
Gilchrist: You want to make sure that the user experience is the same as what they
would experience on a physical device, otherwise they will not accept it.
Just having the horse power -- nowadays these servers are so powerful, and now you
can even get graphics processing units (GPUs) in there -- you can run stuff like
AutoCAD or Adobe and still give the user the same experience that they would normally
have on a physical device. That’s what we are finding. Pretty good so far.
Gardner: Felise, as a Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Platinum Partner, you have
been through this journey before, so you know how it was rough-and-tumble there for a
while with VDI. How has that changed from your perspective at PKA Technologies?
We realized that VDI was
the solution to meet our
goals – to get the software,
where the students need it,
when they need it.

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Katz: When HPE made the acquisition of SimpliVity that was
the moment that defined a huge game-changer because it
enabled us, as a solution provider, to bring the right
technology to CCM. That was huge.
Gardner: When you’re starting out on an IT transition, you
have to keep the wings on the airplane while you’re changing
the engines, or vice versa. You have to keep things going
while you are doing change. Tom, how did you manage that?
How did you keep your students getting their apps? How have
you been able to swap things out in a way that hasn’t been
disruptive?
Gillon: The beauty of VDI is that we can switch
out a lab completely with thin clients in about an
hour. And we didn’t realize that going in. We
thought it would take us most of the day. And
then when we did it, we were like, “Oh my God,
we are done.” We were able to go in there first
thing in the morning and knock it out before the
students even came in.
That really helped us to get these devices out to where the students need them and to
not be disruptive to them.
Gardner: Tom, how did it work from your perspective in terms of an orderly process?
How was the support from your partners like PKA? Do you get to the point where this
becomes routine?
Gillon: PKA has the expertise in this area. We worked with them previously on an Aruba
wireless network deployment project, and we knew that’s who we wanted to work with,
because they were professional and thorough.
Moving to the thin client systems deployments, we contacted PKA and they put together
a solution that worked well for us. We had not been aware of SimpliVity combined with
HPE. They determined that this would be the best path for us, and it turned out to be
true. They came in and we worked with HPE, setting this up and deploying it. Michael
did a lot of that work with HPE. It was very simple to do. We were surprised at how
simple it was.
Academic pressure
Gardner: Felise, as a solution partner that specializes in higher education, what’s
different from working at a college campus environment from, say, a small- to medium-
sized business (SMB) or another type of enterprise? Is there something specific about a
Katz
The beauty of VDI is that we
can switch out a lab completely
with thin clients in about an
hour … We were able to go in
there first thing in the morning
and knock it out before the
students even came in.

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college environment, such as the number of apps, the need for certain people and
groups in the college to have different roles within responsibilities? How did it shake out?
Katz: That’s an interesting question. As a solution provider, as an owner of a business,
we always put our best foot forward. It really doesn’t matter whether it’s an academic
institution or a commercial customer, it always has to be done in the right way.
As a matter of fact, in academics it’s even more profound, and a lot more pressured,
because you are dealing with students, you are dealing with faculty, and you are dealing
with IT staff. Once we are in a “go” mode, we are under a lot of pressure. We have a
limited time span between semesters -- or vacations and holidays -- where we have to
be around to help them to get it up and running.
We have to make sure that the customer is enabled. And with these guys at CCM, they
were so fabulous to work with. They enabled us to help them to do more with less -- and
that’s what the solution is all about. It’s all about simplification. It’s all about
modernization. It’s all about being more efficient. And as Michael said so eloquently, it’s
all about the experience for the students. That’s what we care about.
Choose an HCI for VDI Solution
That’s Right for Your Needs
Gardner: Michael, where are you on your VDI-enablement journey? We heard that you
want to go pervasively to VDI. What have you had to put in place -- in terms of servers in
the HPE SimpliVity HCI case -- to make that happen?
Gilchrist: So far, we have six servers in total. Three servers in each of our two data
centers that we have on campus, for high redundancy. That’s going to allow us to cover
our initial pilot of 300 thin clients that we are putting out there.
As far as the performance of the system goes, we are not even scratching the surface in
terms of the computing or RAM available for those first 300 endpoints.
When it comes to getting more thin clients, I think
we’re going to be able to initially tack on more thin
clients to the initial subset of six servers. And as we
grow, the beauty of SimpliVity is that we just buy
another server, rack it up, and bolt it in -- and that’s it.
It’s just plug and play.
Gardner: In order to assess how well this solution is working, let’s learn more about
CCM. It’s 50 years old. What’s this college all about?
The beauty of SimpliVity is
that we just buy another
server, rack it up, and bolt it
in – and that’s it.

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Data-driven college transformation
Gillon: We are located in North Central New Jersey. We have an enrollment of about
8,000 students per semester; that’s for credit. We also have a lot of non-credit students
coming and going as well.
As you said, we are 50-years-old, and I’ve been there almost 23 years. I was the second
person hired in the IT Department.
I have seen a lot come and go, and we actually just last year inaugurated our third
college president, just three presidents in 50 years. It’s a very stable environment, and
it’s really a great place to work.
Gardner: I understand that you have had with this newest leadership more of a technical
and digital transformation focus. Tell us how the culture of the college has changed and
how that may have impacted your leaping into some of the more modern infrastructure
to support VDI.
Gillon: Our new president is very data-driven. He wants data on everything, and frankly
we weren't in a position to provide that.
We also changed CIOs. Our new CIO came in about a year after the new president, and
he has also a strong data background. He is more about data than technology. So, with
that focus we really knew that we had to get systems in place that are capable of quick
transitions, and this HCI system really did the job for us. We are looking to expand
further beyond that.
Gardner: Felise, I have heard other people refer to hyperconverged infrastructure
architectures like SimpliVity as a gift that keeps giving. Clearly the reason to get into this
was to support the VDI, which is a difficult workload. But there are also other benefits.
What have been some of the other benefits that you have been able to demonstrate to
CCM that come with HCI? Is it the compression, the data storage savings, or a clear
disaster recovery path that they hadn’t had before? What do you see as some of the
ancillary benefits?
Katz: It's all of the above. But to me -- and I think to
both Tom and Michael -- it's really the simplification,
because [HCI] has uncomplicated their capability for
growth and for scale.
Look, they are in a very competitive business, okay, attracting students, as Tom said.
That’s tough, that's where they have to make the difference, they have to make a
difference when that student arrives on campus with his, I don’t know, how many
devices, right?
It’s really the simplification,
because HCI has
uncomplicated their capability
for growth and for scale.

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One student, five devices
Gillon: It averages five now, I think.
Katz: Five devices that come on board. How do you contend with that, besides having
this huge pipe for all the data and everything else that they have to enable? And then
you have new ways of learning that everybody has to step up and enable. It's not just
about a classroom; it’s a whole different world. And when you’re in a rural part of New
Jersey, where you’re looking to attract students, you have to make sure you are at the
top of your game.
Gardner: Expectations are higher than ever, and the younger people are even more
demanding because they haven’t known anything else.
Katz: Yes, just think about their Xbox, their
cell phones, and more devices. It's just a
huge amount. And it's not only for them,
it's also for your college staff.
Gardner: We can’t have a conversation about IT infrastructure without getting into the
speeds and feeds a little bit. Tell us about your SimpliVity footprint, energy,
maintenance, and operating costs. What has this brought to you at CCM? You have
been doing this for 23 years, you know what a high-maintenance server can be like. How
has this changed your perspective on keeping a full-fledged infrastructure up and
running?
Ease into IT
Gillon: There are tremendous benefits, and we are seeing that. The six servers that we
have put in, they are replacing a lot of other devices. If we would have gone with a
different solution, we would have had a rack full of servers to contend with. With this
solution, we are putting three devices in each of our server rooms to handle the load of
our initial 300 VDI deployments -- and hopefully more soon.
There are a lot of savings involved, such as power. A lot of our time is being saved
because we are not a big shop. Besides Michael and myself, I have a network
administrator, and another systems administrator -- that’s it, four people. We just don't
have the time to do a lot of things we need to do -- and this system solves a lot of those
issues.
Gilchrist: From a resources utilization standpoint, the deduplication and compression
that the SimpliVity system provides is just insane. I am logically provisioning hundreds of
terabytes of information in my VMware system -- and only using 1.5 terabytes physically.
And just the backup and restore, it's kind of fire and forget. You put this stuff in place and
[It’s] their Xbox, their cell phones,
and more devices. It’s just a huge
amount, not only for them, [but] also
for your college staff.

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it really does do what they say. You can restore large virtual machines (VMs) in about
one or two seconds and then have it back up and running in case something goes
haywire. It just makes my life a lot easier.
I’m no longer having to worry about, “Well, who was my back-up vendor? Or who is my
storage area network (SAN) vendor? And then there’s trying to combine all of those
systems into one. Well, HPE SimpliVity just takes care of all of that. It’s a one-stop shop;
it’s a no-brainer.
Gardner: All in one, Felise, is that a fair characterization?
Get Your Gorilla Guide
To HCI Implementation Strategies
Katz: That is a very, very true assessment. My goal, my responsibility is to bring
forward the best solution for my customers and having HPE in my corner with this is
huge. It gives me the advantage to help my clients, and so we are able to put together a
really great solution for CCM.
Gardner: There seems to be a natural progression with IT infrastructure adoption
patterns. You move from bare metal to virtualization, then you move from virtualization to
HCI, and then that puts you on a path to private cloud -- and then hybrid cloud. And in
doing this modernization, you get used to the programmatic approach to infrastructure,
so composable infrastructure.
Do you feel that this progression is helping you modernize your organization? And where
might that lead to, Tom?
Gillon: I do. With the experience we are gaining with SimpliVity, we see that this can go
well beyond VDI, and we are excited about that. We are getting to a point where our
current infrastructure is getting a little long in the tooth. We need to make some
decisions, and right now the two of us are like, this is only decision we want to make.
This is the way we are going to go.
Gardner: I have also read that VDI is like the New York of IT -- if you can do it there, you
can do it anywhere. So what next workloads do you have in mind? Is this enterprise
resource planning (ERP), is it business apps? What?
Gillon: All of the above. We are definitely looking to put some of our server loads into
the VDI world, and just the benefits that SimpliVity gives to us in terms of business
continuity and redundancy, it really is a no-brainer for us.
And yes, ERP, we have our ERP system currently virtualized, and the way Michael has
things set up now, it's going to be an easy transition for us when we get to that point.

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Gardner: We have talked a lot about the hardware, but we also have to factor in the
software. You have been using the VMware Horizon approach to VDI and workspaces,
and that’s great, but what about moving toward cloud?
Do you want to have more choice in your hypervisor? Does that set you on another path
to make choices about private cloud? What comes next in terms of what you support on
such a great HCI platform?
A cloudy future?
Gillon: We have decisions to make when it comes to cloud. We are doing some things
in the cloud now, but there are some things we don't want to do in the cloud. And HPE
has a lot of solutions.
We recently attended a discussion with the CEO of HPE [Antonio Neri] about where they
are headed, and they say hybrid is the way to go. You are going to have some on-
premises workloads, you are going to have some off-premises. And that's where we see
CCM going as well.
Gardner: What advice would you give to other organizations that are maybe later in
starting out with VDI? What might save them a step or two?
Gillon: First thing, get yourself a good partner because there are so many things that
you don't know about these systems. And having a good partner like PKA, they brought
a lot to the table. They could have easily provided a solution to us that was just a bunch
of servers.
Gilchrist: Yes, they brought in the
expertise. We didn’t know about SimpliVity,
and once they showed us everything that it
can do, we were skeptical. But it just does it.
We are really happy with it, and I have to
say, having a good partner is step number
one.
Gardner: Felise, what recommendations do you have for organizations that are just now
dipping their toe into workloads like VDI? What is it about HCI in particular that they
should consider?
Look to the future
Katz: If they are looking for flexible architecture, if they are looking for the agility, to be
able to make those moves down the road -- and that's where their minds are – then they
We are really happy with [SimpliVity],
and I have to say, having a good
partner is step number one.

9. Page 9 of 10
really have to do the due diligence. Tom, Michael and their team did. They were able
understand what their needs are, what right requirements are for them -- not just for
today but also going down the road to the future.
When you adopt a new architecture, you are displacing a lot of your older
methodologies, too. It’s a different world, a hybrid world. You need to be able to move,
and to move the workloads back and forth.
It’s a great time right now. It's a great place to be because things are working, and they
are clicking. We have the reference architectures available now to help, but it’s really
first about doing their homework.
CCM is really a great team to work with. It's really a pleasure, and it’s a lot of fun.
And I would be remiss not to say, I have a great team. From my sales to my technical:
Strategic Account Manager Angie Moncada, Systems Engineer Patrick Shelley, and
Vice President of Technology Russ Chow, they were just all-in with them. That makes a
huge difference when you also connect with HPE on the right solutions. So that’s really
been great.
Choose an HCI for VDI Solution
That’s Right for Your Needs
Gardner: I’m afraid we’ll have to leave it there. We’ve been exploring how a New
Jersey college has embarked on a time-saving virtual desktop infrastructure
modernization journey. And we have learned how the combination of HCI and VDI is
making the task of deploying and maintaining the latest end-user devices far simpler and
cheaper in practice than ever before.
So please join me in thanking our guests, Tom Gillon, Director of Network and User
Services at County College of Morris in Randolph, New Jersey. Thank you, Tom.
Gillon: Thank you.
Gardner: And Michael Gilchrist, Assistant Director of Network Systems at County
College of Morris. Thank you so much, Michael.
Gilchrist: Thank you for having me.
Gardner: And Felise Katz, CEO of PKA Technologies, an HPE Platinum Partner. Thank
you.
Katz: Dana, thank you so much. It's really been a pleasure.

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Gardner: And a big thank you to our audience as well for joining this BriefingsDirect
Voice of the Customer digital transformation success story discussion.
I’m Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions, your host for this ongoing
series of Hewlett Packard Enterprise-sponsored interviews. Thanks again for listening.
Please pass this on to your IT community and do come back next time.
Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Get the mobile app. Download the
transcript. Sponsor: Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
Transcript of a discussion on how the combination of hyperconverged infrastructure and
virtual desktop infrastructure are making the task of deploying and maintaining the latest
end-user workspaces far simpler and cheaper than ever. Copyright Interarbor Solutions,
LLC, 2005-2018. All rights reserved.
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