Texas School District Makes the Grade with 1,500 Virtual Desktops

1. Texas School District Makes the Grade with 1,500 Virtual Desktops Robert Keith Director of Technology Rem Mascardo Network System Engineer Sponsored By: February 27, 2014

2. About Waxahachie Independent School District • Located in Waxahachie, Texas • 30 minutes south of Dallas and 40 minutes southeast of Fort Worth • Public School District • Our IT Team • 3 Engineers and 6 Technicians • Who We Serve: • 8,000 students • 1,200 faculty and staff • 1 Pre-Kindergarten School • 6 Elementary Schools • 2 Junior High Schools • 3 High Schools

3. What Were Our Drivers for VDI? • Physical PCs = IT Nightmare • Countless use cases, different from classroom to classroom and even machine to machine • Business Office, front desk clerks, lab settings, Principals, non-instructional positions, etc. • Multiple labs on each campus • Updating physical machines was time-consuming and inefficient • Constantly having to deploy apps and updates to meet teacher needs • Expand education beyond the walls of the classrooms (support BYOD!) • Lay foundation for new educational standards and computer-based testing • Provide the best possible educational experience for the community

4. Our First Attempt at VDI • 900 non-persistent desktops • Mix of thin and zero clients and repurposed PCs • VMware Horizon View for connectivity • Cisco and IBM blade servers for hosting

5. Grading Our First Attempt: C A • Connectivity and protocol performance • Mobile device and client support • IO performance and uptime / user experience • Keep pace with application change requirements • Configure desktops for different use cases with 1 image • Manage VDI with internal IT headcount A C- D- F- C-

6. Decision Point • Had to buy new PCs for teachers who had bad VDI experience • Two choices moving forward: • Fix VDI management and storage issues and try again • Abandon VDI and go back to physical PCs

7. VDI Has Too Many Benefits Not to Try Again! • VDI Management Solution: Unidesk • Easy, all-in-one platform for desktop provisioning, app virtualization, and image management • Simple enough that no longer needed 3rd party consultant • 1 gold image to patch for all desktops and all use cases • Layer apps and app updates in minutes, and rebuild desktops at any time • Push applications to teachers at a moment’s notice • VDI Storage Solution: Pure Storage • All-flash storage array • Virtual Desktop uptime of 99% • 11:1 data de-duplication for outstanding desktop density • Greater efficiency to keep our ever-ballooning data manageable • Latency is less than one millisecond – incredible user experience

8. Our VDI “Retest” – The Numbers • 900 virtual desktops • Mostly labs, some staff • 15 application layers • 1 Windows 7 gold image • 1000 mobile devices • 5 TB Pure Storage array • 75 desktops per Blade NEW NEW

9. Benefits of Unidesk • Provision non-persistent desktops (labs) or persistent desktops (faculty/staff) with one solution • One Gold Windows OS layer for easy patching • Fast and easy application virtualization • Microsoft Office, Adobe PDF Editor, Audacity, Movie Maker, Doceri, ActivInspire, Skyward, Java SDK, Firefox, Google Chrome, drivers, plug-ins • 70% less storage: persistent and non-persistent • Rollback “Personalization” layer for instant break/fix • Installs quickly as vSphere appliances • Integrates with VMware Horizon View The Magic of “Layers”

10. Benefits of Pure Storage • 5 TB all flash array • Only 56% used to date for 900 desktops • Equates to only 3.1 GB per desktop • 11:1 data reduction • Made even better combined with Unidesk’s storage reduction • Provides consistent, seamless uptime • Incredible end user experience with <1 millisecond latency

11. Grading Our Retest: Straight As! A • Connectivity and protocol performance • Mobile device and client support • IO performance and uptime / user experience • Keep pace with application change requirements • Configure desktops for different use cases with 1 image • Manage VDI with internal IT headcount A A A A A

12. VDI Adoption Now Accelerating • VDI with Pure Storage, Unidesk, and VMware Horizon View is a success • Adding 600+ more virtual desktops to the current 900 • Repurposing old PCs for future virtual machines • Supporting BYOD for students • Establishing a foundation for upcoming educational standards and computer-based testing

13. Live Demo

14. Other Unidesk Webinars (www.unidesk.com/resources/webinars) Higher Education • Colby-Sawyer College • Gateway Technical College • Massachusetts Maritime Academy • Menlo College • Mercer University • Southeastern Community College • Southwestern Michigan College • Tennessee Tech University • University of Connecticut • University of Maryland • University of Wisconsin Oshkosh • William Woods University Public Sector (State/Local Government) • County of Hamilton, Indiana • County of Vigo, Indiana • County of Tulare, California • City of Kent, Washington • City of Yuma, Arizona • Port Authority of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania • South Taranaki District Council, NZ • State of Minnesota Dept. Human Services • State of Ohio Dept. of Developmental Disabilities • State of Wisconsin Dept. of Children and Families • Tarrant Regional Water District, Texas Architecture and Engineering • STV Construction • Egan Legal • Bernstein Shur Law Firm Manufacturing • TIPPER TIE, Inc.

15. Q&A and Next Steps • Connect with Robert Keith • rkeith@wisd.org • www.linkedin.com/pub/robert-keith/27/38/6a0 • @wisdtechnology • Connect with Rem Mascardo • rmascardo@wisd.org • www.linkedin.com/pub/rem-mascardo/4b/bb7/80 • Learn more about • Web site: www.unidesk.com • Bi-weekly technical webinar • Date: Tuesday, March 4 at 2pm ET • Register: www.unidesk.com/demo • Learn more about • Web site: www.purestorage.com • Product overview: • www.purestorage.com/flash-array