System Professional : News & Events
VMware View Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) installation at The School of Pharmacy
23 Dec 2010
System Professional has successfully deployed a new VMware View desktop virtualisation, vSphere server virtualisation and HP MSA SAN infrastructure at The School of Pharmacy in London.
System Professional originally met Nick Clark (Interim IT Director) shortly after he joined The School of Pharmacy (SOP). Nick had inherited a technology challenges that he needed to address regarding The School’s existing IT systems and infrastructure.
Founded in 1842 by the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain to “elevate the profession of pharmacy by furnishing the means of proper instruction”, The School was housed at No 17 Bloomsbury Square, London.
Today, The School of Pharmacy, University of London is the only free-standing specialist school in the UK dedicated entirely to teaching and research in pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences; with world-class teaching and a top rated research quality profile.
In order to create more space for a planned server room refurbishment, Nick initially engaged System Professional to carry out a VMware vSphere server virtualisation project and consolidate the ageing Dell hardware.
The second phase of the project addressed the problematic desktop environment. After analysing potential solutions in more detail with System Professional’s project team, Nick chose the VMware View solution. VDI is a comprehensive desktop virtualisation that lets users replace traditional PCs with virtual machines that can be managed from the data centre and managed via a central console.
Nick explained that “I was impressed by how System Professional handled the VMware vSphere server virtualisation project and their response to a challenging working environment. I found their technical team were able to respond quickly and flexibly, and were happy to go the extra mile when required. They worked very much as a partner rather than a traditional supplier and it was the natural choice to work with them again on the VDI roll-out. In addition, the integration between VMware’s vSphere and desktop virtualisation technology was a significant factor when evaluating competitive solutions. System Professional delivered the new VDI environment incredibly quickly, since we only had just over 1 week between the handover of the new IT Suite and the start of the new academic term.”
The current VDI estate is now fully operational, with 80 XP desktops on Devon IT thin clients. It can handle 30 concurrent thin clients running molecular modelling applications without any performance problems. Nick stressed how “System Professional’s new VDI solution has given us the flexibility and centralised management we were looking for. It allows us to quickly and easily redeploy a new desktop image without having to visit the physical machine. This has enabled us to significantly cut IT administration time and reduce support calls. The smaller footprint of the thin clients has also enabled us to reduce power consumption at a desktop level and enhance the School’s Green credentials.”