Dell KACE in Education
Facilitating electronic curriculum delivery, maximum student learning time
Student learning tops the priority list of all institutions, whether elementary, secondary, college or university. And as technology becomes an ever greater part both of the curriculum itself and the vehicle by which it is delivered, effective technology management has grown in importance as well. Along with this new focus have come many systems management challenges, often compounded by the reality of limited IT staff and flat or shrinking budgets. One to one student laptop and tablet initiatives, the diverse computing needs of students, faculty and staff, the requirement for both ongoing lab and annual system reimaging, and a perpetually mobile and geographically dispersed user population ̶ all add to the complexities faced by systems administrators in education.
The Solution
Dell KACE K Series Appliances have consistently been the systems management choice for educational institutions, where there exists an acute need for a solution that is comprehensive and affordable, while still being easy-to-use and maintain. The appliance form factor is the perfect all-in-one delivery vehicle, requiring no added hardware or software prerequisites, no professional services fees for implementation and training, or added systems experts to use and care for the solution.
Some appliance capabilities especially beneficial to educational institutions include:
- Hardware and software inventory means that institutions can understand all of the system characteristics of every network-attached device, critical when dealing with systems that are issued and returned regularly.
- Software distribution system-wide means that all devices can receive all digital updates, however frequently and regardless of user location. Gone are the time and expense of campus-wide travel required for ongoing system maintenance.
- Disk imaging provides a streamlined way cut the time and complexity required to deploy and reimage systems, a chore which can gobble IT administrators’ time and a schools scant resources.
- Windows 7 migrations are greatly simplified with the capabilities of the KACE Appliances, including determining hardware readiness and performing user state migrations.
- Asset management capabilities ensure the most effective control of hardware, software and non-computing assets, from purchase to retirement, empowering institutions to save money and remain compliant.
- Service Desk and User Portal functionality brings comprehensive and integrated end user support, including user self-service to reduce demands on IT support staff.
- Multi-operating system support enables systems administrators to deploy and maintain a variety of operating systems from a single console, including the latest versions of Windows, Mac and Linux.
- Security audit and enforcement and patching provide the endpoint protection necessary to both detect and remediate system vulnerabilities through regular scans and the application of both application and operating system patches.
- Power management enables institutions to enforce power down policies, greatly reducing power costs during times of non-use, such as summer vacation.
- Configuration and policy management ensures that institution-wide policies and protections are enforced, even to the level of detecting and removing non-approved software.
- Remote control capabilities allow administrators to reach out and repair systems from a central location, negating campus-wide travel.