Keeping Pymble top of the class

A Sydney school is underlining the benefits of desktop virtualisation and showcasing the potential educational advances that could be realised in the public education system, under the Government’s planned Digital Education Revolution. Pymble Ladies’ College (Pymble) has virtualised its computing environment using Citrix technology to improve accessibility to data and applications for its students at school, at home, or on the move.

By implementing a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), Pymble has reduced its total cost of ownership by centralising desktop management and increasing the traditional desktop lifecycle. User induced technical issues which are highly prevalent in a school environment have been reduced with VDI, hence reducing the cost of IT Support and user downtime.

While at school, students access their desktops via HP 2533t mobile thin clients. This allows the school to continue with its one-to-one computing program, while leveraging the benefits of a virtual desktop environment. While at home, students can access their school desktops via their notebooks or home PC, as well as remotely print to the classroom printer if required. As a result, students do not need to carry their notebooks to and from school but still have consistent access to the school’s network and resources at all times.

“Pymble prides itself in ensuring that all students have a world-class education, enabled through the best use of technology,” said Rathika Suresh, Director of Information Technology at Pymble Ladies’College.

“Our goal is to provide an education that prepares our students for the technology-enabled workplace of the future. Citrix took the time to understand the school’s specific needs and provided us with the best technology available.”

As a result of discussions with Citrix Consulting, Pymble has so far rolled out Citrix XenDesktop™ to its Year 5 students with plans for virtual desktops to become the status quo for all incoming Year 5 students. Citrix XenDesktop delivers virtual desktops as a service to students anywhere, which means students can now access the school’s e-learning resources via their virtual desktops across any network and device.

Citrix XenDesktop is the only virtual desktop solution that delivers a high definition user experience over any connection - including low-latency access on the local network to virtual desktops and high latency wide area networks for remote desktop access using Citrix HDX technology.

Pymble is also using Citrix’s server virtualisation product to better utilise its existing resources. Citrix XenServer™ delivers the critical features of live migration and centralised multi-server management. Pymble benefits from better and more streamlined integration with the school’s virtual desktop infrastructure, simplified virtualisation management across multiple servers and reduced licensing costs.

Peter Brockhoff, Area Vice President, Australia and New Zealand, Citrix Systems said, “As the Digital Education Revolution rolls out across Australia, private and public schools need to turn their attention to how best to support computers in the school environment.