Colchester Sixth Form College

College Background  3000 students  Mainly Full Time A Level  200 IB students  Last inspection October 2007  1000 PCs/Laptops  60+ servers

Green Developments – Mid-Site  Building opened August 2008  Rain water collection  Solar panels

IT Issues - PCs  Wide range of PCs – Suppliers/models  Maintenance/support issues  Software installation issues  Requests for variety of software  Hardware support  Needed to rationalise/simplify

PC’s - Solutions  Standardisation on one type of PC  Minimum specification in accordance with ILT Strategy  Looked at several suppliers – Dell, RM etc.  Decided on the RM EcoQuiet  Education based company  Good track record with the College  Good case design  Used common motherboard in a variety of cases  Chose against DVD/Floppy but can use USB based if required

RM One EcoQuiet  All in one box to make installation easier  Green features  Based on low power motherboards (laptops)  Environmentally friendly designed case  Removable monitor (though the base cannot be purchased without the monitor)  Glass screen  Graffiti proof case  Carry handle  Awards

RM One – Power comparison

Energy Saving – RM EcoQuiet Series

IT Issues - Servers  Increasing demand for servers  Fault tolerance  Moodle  Multiple types/suppliers  Replacement costs  Manage of support  Space issues  Air conditioning  Noise  Installation / repair problems  UPS costs  Backups – lots of tapes

Road to virtualisation  Trial of MS Virtual Server 2005  Trial of VMWare  Virtualisation of Library/Personnel/Finance systems  Move to ESX with greater fault tolerance and OpenFiler SAN  Increased servers  Move to EMC Clarrion SAN

Server Allocation  Original  42 servers  End of year  6 ESX Servers (running 60+ virtual servers)  SAN  2 ‘Remote’ access servers

Benefits of Virtualisation  Fewer physical servers  Less power consumption  Lower maintenance/replacement costs  More space  Easier to add systems  Quick to set up a virtual server to install/test  Increased reliability  Less physical servers to go wrong  If issue occurs then can move the virtual servers easily (VMotion)  Easier to upgrade servers  Add to farm, move virtual servers, remove old server