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Success Story

Eaton Rapids Public Schools An unreliable infrastructure was draining the Eaton Rapids Public Schools at a glance: IT resources at Eaton Rapids Public Schools. School district in mid-central Michigan The district eliminated downtime by migrating to Industry: ® Open Enterprise on SUSE® in Education a clustered environment. Standardizing desktops Location: United States with Novell ZENworks® also reduced desktop Solutions: maintenance time by 50 percent. Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

™ SM Novell Cluster Services Overview with Gracon, a Novell Platinum Partner , Located in mid-central Michigan, Eaton and decided to migrate to Novell Open Novell ZENworks Rapids Public Schools has 3,300 students Enterprise Server on SUSE Linux in a Novell GroupWise and 250 staff. The district recently obtained clustered environment. Results: a $2 million construction bond for technol- – Reduced overall administration time ogy improvements. “We could not have afforded a clustered by 20 percent environment with any other solution” said – Reduced desktop maintenance time Challenge Lyne Roberts, director of Technology and and costs by 50 percent With an aging IT infrastructure, Eaton Rapids Media Services at Eaton Rapids Public – Reduced IT travel time by 75 percent Public Schools was experiencing regular Schools. “With Novell Open Enterprise Server – Created a stable IT infrastructure network downtime. A small IT staff was running on Linux, we have unprecedented despite a 10-percent budget cut rebooting its servers sometimes twice a stability. We hardly even need to go into and without additional IT resources week and facing downtime costs of several our server room anymore.” thousand dollars per incident. The district’s network storage requirements were also Working with Gracon, the district implemented “We could not have afforded a doubling each year, but a more stable a four-node cluster and has practically elim- clustered environment with any architecture was needed to provide inated downtime. If one server should fail, other solution. With Novell Open adequate storage and backup. the others will automatically take over without Enterprise Server running on any business disruption. Such stability has Linux, we have unprecedented Managing 200 separate applications across restored user confidence and dramatically stability. We hardly even need to 1,000 desktops was also a challenge, often reduced network administration time. The IT go into our server room anymore.” requiring IT staff to spend all their time travel- staff can also perform server maintenance ing to update individual workstations. Eaton without scheduling network downtime. Lyne Roberts Rapids Public Schools wanted to centralize Director of Technology and Media Services desktop management for its seven locations. “We have much more dependency today Eaton Rapids Public Schools on online resources, including printing, Solution storage, archiving and e-mail,” said Roberts. Based on the stability of its UNIX* server, “A clustered network based on Novell Open Eaton Rapids Public Schools began evaluat- Enterprise Server and Linux is essential for ing a migration to Linux*. The district worked us to keep our schools running.” 4681136.app 6/21/07 5:46 PM Page 2

“Novell ZENworks has made a quantum difference for us. In the past, we had two full-time people running around to all our workstations. Now we can image 30 machines in a lab in just two hours.”

Lyne Roberts Director of Technology and Media Services Eaton Rapids Public Schools www.novell.com

The district is currently running its file and and updates in minutes, without having to print services, Skyward student information leave their desks.

system and Novell GroupWise® on the Linux Contact your local Novell cluster. With a stable network, the district has The remote control capabilities of Novell Solutions Provider, or call been able to add two SANs to keep pace ZENworks allow the district’s small IT staff Novell at: with its two-terabyte storage requirements. to troubleshoot workstations from a central 1 800 714 3400 U.S./Canada Using Novell Storage Manager, the district location, greatly reducing travel time. 1 801 861 1349 Worldwide also provides each student with network file 1 801 861 8473 Facsimile storage, based on identity. Students can “The remote control feature of Novell maintain the same e-portfolio from grade ZENworks is essential for us,” said Roberts. For More Information: To read more customer school to high school graduation. “If someone has a problem with their success stories, visit: Windows* desktop, we can fix it immedi- www.novell.com/success The district has also implemented Novell ately from our office. We absolutely love it.” iPrint to allow users to print to any printer on Novell, Inc. the network, regardless of location. Users can Results 404 Wyman Street install printers by just clicking on a desktop Moving to a clustered environment with Waltham, MA 02451 USA icon, freeing up the IT staff from visiting Novell Open Enterprise Server on SUSE individual workstations to manually install Linux helped Eaton Rapids Public Schools print drivers. consolidate servers by 22 percent and eliminate downtime. A clustered Linux envi- Using Novell Business Continuity Clustering, ronment has reduced overall administration the district is creating a redundant data time by 20 percent and has allowed the IT center in a new building. In case of a staff to create new storage and disaster disaster, the district has a solid disaster recovery solutions. recovery strategy as its Novell network would be up and running within minutes. Centralized desktop management with Novell ZENworks has reduced desktop Migrating to a Linux environment has also maintenance time and costs by 50 percent. created opportunities to use open source Without the need to manually update and such as OpenOffice.org, Scribus, troubleshoot workstations, the district has GIMP, as well as Xen* for server virtualization. also reduced IT travel time by 75 percent. With increasing requests for new software, the district has more flexibility with open “With Novell, we have increased our network source options and can help reduce and storage reliability, standardized our desk- escalating software licensing costs. tops and improved our overall IT services,” said Roberts. “We did it all without increas- Using Novell ZENworks, the district has ing our IT staff and despite a 10-percent standardized its 1,000 desktops and can budget cut. Other districts are now asking manage them all from a central location. us how they can do the same.” The IT staff can now deliver new applications

468-001136-001 | 06/07 | © 2007 Novell, Inc. All rights reserved. Novell, the Novell logo, the N logo, GroupWise, SUSE and ZENworks are registered trademarks; Novell Cluster Services is a trademark; and Novell Platinum Partner is a service mark of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

*Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All other third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.