SMARTER, GREENER LEARNING

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

RM One

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160

Power consumption – Typical use

Figures from Tom’s Hardware andRM Web site

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