Isambard Community School Passes Systems Management Test With KACE™
New systems management strategy saves school over £50,000 per year on desktop management; allows IT team to innovate
Reading, UK – 17th June 2009 – KACE™, the leading systems management appliance company, today announced that Isambard Community School, a new college established to provide high-quality education services in Swindon, has deployed KACE to automate its systems management processes. Following the deployment, the school expects to save more than £50,000 per year through improved desktop management and help-desk support. The time savings achieved by using a central systems management appliance has enabled the school to move forward more quickly with other innovative IT projects, such as server virtualisation.
Isambard Community School was opened in August 2007 with a new IT network set up to support the college's staff and pupils. However, even with this clean-slate approach, Isambard's IT team was faced with a range of management headaches, from application packaging and deployment through to updating the mixture of Microsoft Windows PCs and Apple Mac machines. Matt Garland, IT Network Manager at the college decided to use the KBOX appliances from KACE to solve these problems, as well as implementing its integrated help-desk to streamline support.
"We have around 600 desktops to maintain, including both Apple iMacs and Windows-based machines. We wanted a system that could manage both sets of machines, as well as automate our other systems management requirements," explained Mr. Garland. "The KBOX appliances from KACE provided us with the ease of use and simplicity that we were after, as well as being extremely cost-effective compared to the other tools and solutions that we looked at. Overall, the school now benefits from better IT support and a more efficient network, while we have also freed up time to concentrate on other IT projects, such as virtualising our server estate. KACE is at the bedrock of our IT strategy, helping us to deliver better results for staff and pupils."
Isambard's implementation of KACE covers a wide variety of systems management tasks, including:
- Management of desktops – with support for both Apple iMacs running OS X and Microsoft Windows PCs, Garland and his team can control and manage all of the college's 600 machines centrally
- Integrated help-desk – a web-based interface allows users to enter issues automatically and have them assigned to a member of the IT team; the KACE appliances also integrate full asset data to simplify and speed up resolution of problems
- Application packaging and deployment – updates and new applications can be created centrally and then distributed to the machines that require them
- Software license management – the college has a complete record of all its software licenses in one place, making audit easier and ensuring that the school is only using the number of licenses it requires
The implementation of the two appliances was completed in one day, while KACE's innovative web-based training method brought Mr. Garland and his team up to speed quickly, while not requiring them to spend time out of the office.
Rob Meinhardt, CEO and co-founder of KACE, commented, "Education organisations are faced with significant challenges when it comes to managing their IT resources: the wide variety of systems used coupled with the number of responsibilities that school IT managers have means that schools and colleges spend more effort on management, rather than looking at how to be innovative. KACE helps remove some of the burden that IT managers face, and helps them to concentrate on providing more value back to the organisation. By implementing the right systems management approach, Isambard is good example of how education establishments can save on costs as well as building for the future."
About KACE™
KACE™ is the leading systems management appliance company. The award-winning KBOX™ family of appliances delivers easy-to-use, comprehensive systems management capabilities. KACE customers usually install in one day and enjoy the lowest total cost compared to software alternatives.
KACE is headquartered in Mountain View, California. To learn more about KACE and its product offerings, please visit http://www.kace.com.
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Mark Kember / Claire Chapman
Goode International
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