Cloudy Nutanix has scored a contract with Coleg Gwent, one of Wales’ largest and top-performing colleges and installed its solution just in time to handle the coronavirus crisis.
The outfit is using its enterprise cloud solution in a bid to transition from local to virtual desktops, using Citrix as the preferred vendor for virtual desktop software.
The cunning plan is to move away from the traditional classroom and adopting a more flexible approach to learning delivery.
The college decided on Nutanix enterprise cloud software, hosting Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops. Not only did this combination meet technical requirements but, as an existing customer of both Nutanix and specialist education partner ET Works, the college was confident that it would deliver on the promises made.
Coleg Gwent ICT Infrastructure Manager Evan Smith said: “Having geared up for a switch from local to virtual desktops using Nutanix infrastructure and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, we were in good shape to deal with the unexpected. Which was just as well, because the unexpected was just around the corner and coping with lockdown was nowhere near as challenging as it might have been.”
Following the installation of Nutanix enterprise cloud infrastructure in the college data centre and the configuration of the Citrix software to meet its virtual desktop requirements, the first rollout was to around six hundred on-campus Windows laptops. A rollout that proved remarkably successful with extraordinarily little comment from the users involved.
“We had designed the Citrix virtual environment to be as close as possible to a local Windows desktop, and it worked. Once logged on, most of our users simply didn’t know they were on a virtual desktop at all”, explained Evan.
The team were already developing a virtual desktop profile for just that purpose, requiring only minor tweaking before it could be distributed. Power users running multiple screens could also be accommodated, simply by giving them remote access to their on-campus desktops to run graphic intensive CAD and modelling apps.
Nutanix Vice President & General Manager Sales, Dom Poloniecki, said: “Coleg Gwent has delivered a blueprint that other educational institutions can follow on to how to cope with planned and unexpected growth in end user computing demand through instant scaling of physical and virtual resources, which is clearly front of mind for many institutions right now.”
“A highly available and resilient Virtual Desktop Infrastructure has enabled Coleg Gwent to rapidly accelerate and scale up a wider deployment of their chosen virtual desktop solution in order to keep staff teaching and students learning through lockdown and beyond.”
