Institutional NeedBlue Quills First Nations College needed

to replace aging computers with a more

flexible solution that would allow it

to focus on new initiatives such as

distance learning.

SolutionThe college implemented a Dell™ Desktop

Virtualization Solution with VMware®

View™ and Dell Wyse™ zero clients with

help from its trusted IT advisor Imperium

Inc. and Dell Premier Partner Redapt Inc.

Benefits• Zero downtime with end-to-end

Dell solution

• Ability to offer more educational

opportunities

• 4 days to implement VDI

solution for 90 users through

Dell partner network

• 50 percent less management time

required for supporting infrastructure

• 1 hour recovery point objective (RPO)

with offsite replication

Solutions Featured• Data Center Virtualization

• Desktop Virtualization

• Networking

• Storage

• Support Services

Customer profile

Company Blue Quills First

Nations College

Industry Education

Country Canada

Students Approximately 300

Faculty/Staff 30

Web site bluequills.ca

“Our new infrastructure provides us with a stable base to operate from, which allows us to concentrate more of our time and energy on enhancing the learning experience.” Sherri Chisan, Coordinator of Leadership & Management/Indigenous Artists/Doctoral Studies Programs, Blue Quills First Nations College

Blending tradition and technologyBlue Quills First Nations College eliminates downtime while offering more educational opportunities to students

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For more than 40 years, Blue Quills First Nations College (BQFNC) has been a locally controlled education center serving western Canada, owned and governed by seven local First Nations communities in Treaty Six Territory in Alberta: Beaver Lake, Cold Lake, Frog Lake, Whitefish Lake, Heart Lake, Kehewin and Saddle Lake.

Located approximately 200 kilometers northeast of Edmonton, BQFNC is committed to promoting a sense of pride in indigenous heritage and reclaiming traditional knowledge and practices. It’s also using cutting-edge technology to enrich learning and teach skills that are relevant in today’s job market.

Aging systems create headaches Until recently, the college used older PCs as servers for networking functions. Capital expenditures on hardware were allotted to faculty and staff PCs as well as student lab PCs. A grant from the Alberta government provided the college with the funds needed to update its network infrastructure as well as workstations for faculty, staff and students.

The college engaged Imperium Inc., a Calgary-based solutions provider, to design and implement a private cloud to support a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) environment for students, faculty and staff.

“We recommended a virtualized environment,” says Colin Bodor, president of Imperium. “They wanted

the desktop virtualization solution in place by the beginning of fall semester, so we had to move fast.”

The First Nations are the indigenous peoples of all of what

is now Canada. There are over 630 recognized First Nations

governments or bands spread across Canada, representing

nearly 700,000 people. Many of these communities are located

hundreds of miles from major population centers. Providing

educational opportunities in this environment—especially

much-needed technology skills—can be a challenge.

Technology at work

Solutions

Integrated Dell™ Remote Access Controllers (iDRAC) Enterprise

Services

Dell Support Services - Dell ProSupport™ Next Business Day onsite response

Hardware

Dell EqualLogic™ PS4100X iSCSI SANs

Dell Force10 S55 switches

Dell PowerEdge™ R710 and R610 servers with Intel® Xeon® processors

Dell Wyse™ P20 zero clients with Dell 20” flat panel monitors

Software

Dell EqualLogic SAN HeadQuarters (SAN HQ)

Microsoft® Office 2010

VMware® View 5 Enterprise

VMware vSphere™ 5 Enterprise

Windows® 7 Professional 64-bit

Windows Server® 2008 R2

“ In rural Canada, where it’s a three-hour drive to the nearest computer store, having Dell ProSupport is absolutely critical.” Colin Bodor, President, Imperium Inc.

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Virtual desktop infrastructure in four days Imperium suggested a Dell Desktop Virtualization Solution with VMware View VDI software, hosted on Dell PowerEdge servers virtualized with VMware vSphere 5 Enterprise. A Dell EqualLogic PS4100X iSCSI SAN provides shared storage for the virtual machines (VMs) running Windows Server 2008 R2, while Dell Force10 S55 switches provide top-of-rack network connectivity.

To meet the college’s implementation timeline, Imperium leveraged the Dell partner network. “We wanted to focus our expertise on design and delivery, instead of spending time procuring the equipment and checking configurations,” says Bodor. “So we engaged Redapt Inc., a Redmond, Washington-based Dell partner that we had worked with on several previous occasions. They’ve proven to be a great partner.”

“The broad solution set available from Dell helps partners serve customers better,” says Jeff Fasen, VP, technology solutions, Redapt. “We’re able to offer the right solutions to customers instead of fighting bureaucracy when we partner with Dell. It’s the friendliest channel to engage with, and the solutions are solid.”

Named Dell Premier Partner of the Year, Redapt is certified in Dell servers and storage. “We had to make the most of our time onsite at Blue Quills,” says Bodor. “Redapt ordered the equipment from Dell to their merge center, staged everything and checked all the configurations. They made sure that everything was shipped to us in one order and everything was there when we arrived onsite to do the actual deployment. If we had been missing

one thing, that would have pushed us at least a day beyond schedule. We literally saved hundreds of hours by working with Redapt.”

Imperium and Redapt met the deployment deadline, completing the rollout of 90 VDI seats in just four days. Legacy machines were donated or sold at inexpensive prices to local families.

50 percent less maintenance time required The Windows 7-based virtual desktops are delivered to Dell Wyse P20 zero clients with Dell 20-inch flat panel monitors. About the size of a notebook, this dedicated zero client uses the PCoIP protocol to deliver the highest level of display performance available in an extremely compact, energy-efficient form factor. Because all the processing takes place in the data center instead of on the client machines, remediating any issues requires only a simple reboot.

“Users can download anything,” says Bodor. “They can be as destructive as they want, and it makes no difference to the next person who uses the machine. The zero clients reboot fast, and users get a fresh desktop every time. Students and teachers can also be more mobile—if they’re in the library, they don’t have to go back to the lab to access the application they need.”

The college is providing a better user experience, and maintaining the supporting infrastructure is now a half-time job for one person instead of a full-time job. “Now their IT people can spend more time developing new services and working on new initiatives such as distance learning instead of running around fixing computers,” says Bodor.

“ We’re able to offer the right solutions to customers instead of fighting bureaucracy when we partner with Dell. It’s the friendliest channel to engage with, and the solutions are solid.” Jeff Fasen, VP, Technology Solutions, Redapt Inc.

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Says Anne Blower, IT coordinator at Blue Quills First Nations College: “My goal was to implement a low maintenance solution for our network infrastructure, which I believe we have done.”

The college is also saving on power costs, since the Dell Wyse zero clients use a fraction of the energy of traditional desktop PCs. They’re also nearly silent—a pleasant change in classrooms and labs. “One of the teachers thanked us for finally getting rid of the monster in her office,” says Bodor. “Those old PCs can be quite loud.”

“I appreciate the quick start-up time, operating speed and noiseless presence,” says Sherri Chisan, coordinator of leadership & management/indigenous artists/doctoral studies programs, Blue Quills First Nations College.

Disaster recovery included The college engaged Imperium to manage and monitor its VDI infrastructure on an ongoing basis. Imperium uses Dell EqualLogic SAN HeadQuarters (SAN HQ) software to manage the storage remotely, and administers the Dell PowerEdge servers using Integrated Dell Remote Access Controllers (iDRAC Enterprise). “We have all the tools we need for remote management,” says Bodor.

Imperium is also leveraging the built-in replication capabilities of Dell EqualLogic storage to improve

the college’s recovery objectives. “We’re automatically replicating any changes in data to another Dell EqualLogic SAN located in a co-lo facility in Calgary, enabling a recovery point objective of one hour,” he says. “We’re using the Alberta SuperNet, a government-funded, ultra-high speed broadband network, so replication is fast and easy.”

Room to grow twofold The college asked Imperium to build enough headroom into the solution to allow it to grow its VDI capacity up to 180 seats over the next three years without adding hardware. “They’ll be able to grow it as they need to,” says Bodor. “Even if they need more capacity in three years, they won’t have to rip and replace—they can add more VM hosts and more EqualLogic units, and expand the Force10 network.”

Scaling VDI is more cost effective than replacing traditional PCs on regular refresh cycles, Bodor notes: “The cost of 30 or 40 new PCs is a lot more than adding another VMware host and more zero clients.”

Zero downtime, no data loss Imperium designed the solution to be redundant, and so far there has been no downtime. If a zero client breaks, a spare is available within minutes, and it provides an identical desktop, with no data loss. “They could blow a switch and nobody would be the wiser except us,

because they fail over,” says Bodor. “That said, we’ve been using Force10 switches for five years for different customers, and we’ve never had one fail.”

If replacement parts are needed, Dell ProSupport provides next business day onsite response. “In rural Canada, where it’s a three-hour drive to the nearest computer store, having Dell ProSupport is absolutely critical,” Bodor notes.

Offering more educational opportunities Another benefit of desktop virtualization is the ability to roll out new software in minutes, instead of having to visit and configure each machine. That means teachers can have more flexibility in their technology and curriculum, and as the systems are upgraded to support additional platforms, instructors will be able to facilitate distance education from their desks.

“Our new infrastructure provides us with a stable base to operate from, which allows us to concentrate more of our time and energy on enhancing the learning experience,” says Chisan. “We have made a number of changes to our infrastructure in the last year, most notably our new network, and we are looking forward to our continuing growth as an educational institution.”

Availability and terms of Dell Services vary by region. For more information, visit: dell.com/servicedescriptions. © March 2013, Dell Inc. Dell is a trademark of Dell Inc. Intel and Intel Xeon are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Microsoft, Windows and Windows Server are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. This case study is for informational purposes only. Dell makes no warranties—express or implied—in this case study. Reference number: 10011912

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