NCCE 2011 Admin/IT Summit - Virtualization

2. Richland School District #400 NCCE – Admin/IT Summit March 2, 2011

3. Richland School District #400 11,000 Students and 1200 staff LCD’s and document cameras in all classrooms 150+ interactive whiteboards (IWB) Migrated from Netware to Microsoft 2008-09 Currently support 7500 Active Directory accounts 6300 secondary students & 1200 staff – certified and classified Microsoft SLA 3-year term, July 2008 – 2012 Enterprise CAL Suite – Windows servers, Exchange, Sharepoint, Forefront, OCS – IM & Microsoft Exchange Unified Messaging for Voicemail - integrated with Avaya VoIP Server leasing since 2000: 3-year terms, 2 leases

4. Server Virtualization Server Migration from distributed to centralized environment in December 2008: VMware running ESXi hosts with iSCSI SANs vCenter, vSphere, vMotion, Storage vMotion, Cloning, P2V, Virtual appliances, High Availability (HA) Migrated from tape backup to disk-to-disk-to-disk (offfsite) Initially migrated 30+ physical servers to 3 ESXi hosts Replaced initial hosts in May 2010 - RAM is the key!! Currently running 55 VM’s on 3 ESXi hosts PowerSchool, Altiris, iFAS, Destiny, Exchange, Mealtime, IEP Looking to add 4th ESX host New applications = can it be a VM?

5. VDI Drivers/Goals Windows 2000 support phasing out between 2009 & 2014 Upgrade/replace PC’s to meet OSPI minimum specification New district standard for existing PC/laptops Move to Win XP Pro & Office 2007 Excess all computers below minimum spec Re-purpose older PC’s as thin clients where applicable 2010-11 licensed/budgeted for 4000 PC’s/laptops A 5-year refresh cycle = refresh rate of 800 annually New PC/laptop at average cost of $800 = $640,000 annually Refurbished at average cost of $350 = $280,000 annually Refurbished/Off-Lease CPU’s, 3-5 year life cycle GX745 SFF, Core 2 Duo w/2.0 GHz, 2GB RAM, DVD/CDRW, 3-year warranty

6. VDI Selection VDI Software Solution for Richland SD Selected Citrix XenDesktop for our solution Conducted our own research at the time of purchase Citrix XenApp (application virtualization) were desired features for RSD Considerations for selecting a solution. General VDI user experience is similar between XenDesktop & View Do your own research / speak to a qualified vendor prior to purchase Keep in mind both packages are software-based so feature sets can evolve over time Similar metrics are used when planning system hardware Compute - CPU Memory - expansion capabilities Storage - iSCSI, Fibre Channel, FCoE, etc.

7. VDI Implementation Server hardware solution for Richland SD Goal: support 800 clients with room to expand as needed Extensive comparisons between HP, Dell and Cisco UCS Many alternate offerings were over subscribed on CPU and ability to expand RAM was not cost-effective With maximum amount of RAM installed – 1333Mhz->1066Mhz-> 800Mhz Individual sessions utilize 1-2 GB RAM each 6-8 XenDesktop users per CPU core Cisco UCS supports up to 384GB RAM per full width blade, 4 per chassis HP/Dell solutions included their own switches – additional connectivity cost Cisco UCS offered best cost & effectiveness for our solution

8. VDI Architecture

9. Initial VDI Benefits Excessed 830+ systems summer 2010 = 21% of total Libraries, labs, student PC’s to start – elementary and middle schools Converted 325+ legacy systems to thin clients New thin clients options: Windows Embedded Windows Fundamentals Linux OS Zero client Zero client with Wi-Fi Windows 7 and Office 2010 rollout Secure Gateway = Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)

10. Questions: