Mukwonago Area School District Transitioned from an Aging Novell® System to a Pure Linux Network in 2011
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Success Story Collaboration File and Networking Services Mukwonago Area Endpoint Management School District With the intent of leveraging open-source solutions to decrease costs, the Mukwonago Area School District transitioned from an aging Novell® system to a pure Linux network in 2011. After 12 months of struggling with frequent network outages, rising support costs and poor integration with key applications, the district came back to Novell. As a result, the network is stable, support costs are down, and integration with industry-standard education systems is easy. Again. Overview implementing open source in an attempt to It sounded like a good idea at the time. reduce long-term costs and increase sustain- ability,” says Kelly Kovnesky, supervisor of In 2011, the Novell NetWare®-based network network operations for the district. for Mukwonago Area School District needed a complete overhaul of application deploy- They installed Linux servers, Windows Ter mi- ment, directory, file and print services. The nal Server, Zimbra Collaboration Server and Attachmate Group had recently purchased open-source tools for user account manage- Novell, and it wasn’t yet clear what the com- ment. These products were supposed to work pany’s future strategy would be. Microsoft with existing applications or comparable open- Mukwonago Area School District didn’t have an affordable licensing model, and source alternatives. at a Glance: open-source solutions were a rising IT trend. More than 4,700 students attend Mukwonago Although the district had used Novell tech- Challenge schools, including six elementary schools, one middle nology for more than 10 years, open source The open-source approach initially reduced school and one high school. The district includes seemed like an attractive option for decreas- hardware and software costs by 11 percent. 339 teachers and 150 staff. It covers 90 square miles, serving 10 communities near Milwaukee, WI. ing hardware, software and support costs. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to offset the 42 percent jump in external support costs. In Industry and Location “The district determined that if we had to com- addition, key features of the Novell system, Education, Mukwonago, WI pletely overhaul our mission-critical compo- such as application deployment and desk- nents anyway, it would be worth the risk of top management, weren’t available in open Product and Services source form, and alternatives failed to meet Novell Filr the district’s requirements. Novell GroupWise with mobile data synchronization “Our original Novell network had By the end of that school year, overall network Novell iPrint been stable for 10-plus years, stability and customer service had declined Novell Open Enterprise Server with only one directory outage. Novell ZENworks Configuration Management to unacceptable levels. The network exper i - Novell Storage Manager We re-evaluated our needs and enced up to 10 outages per month. Tech ni- Novell ZENworks Mobile Management determined moving back to Novell cians spent hundreds of hours developing Identity Manager was our best option.” custom applications, integrations and system management workarounds. The Internet filter Results + Reduced network outages from 10 per month KELLY KOVNESKY was neither scalable enough to handle the to none SUPERVISOR OF NETWORK OPERATIONS needs of the district, nor stable enough for future wireless Internet traffic. + Decreased support costs by 42 percent MUKWONAGO AREA SCHOOL DISTRICT + Added Windows integration capabilities + Improved system management without adding full-time IT staff “Although we considered the timing and inten- to cost you something somewhere down the tions of our open-source implementation plan road.” to be perfect, and though we experienced some successes, the end result was minimal Today, with Novell ZENworks, only five IT tech- cost savings, decreased stability, and a ques- nicians handle all of the district’s IT support. tionable technology partner,” Kovnesky says. “Centralized management was a huge sell- “Looking back, there were many surprises ing point for us. That’s what tipped the scale. that left IT staff struggling to find solutions for When we looked at device management, services that we were once able to offer our Microsoft couldn’t come close,” she says. users with ease.” Novell integration with Active Directory sup- Solution ports every system in production and provides With a cost analysis and system performance the industry standardization that makes it easy metrics in hand, Kovnesky recommended for the district to integrate with web-hosted that Mukwonago Area School District return systems such as Google Apps, Curriculum www.novell.com to a Novell-based network. “We re-evaluated Loft, Destiny, Discovery Education and appli- our needs and determined moving back to cations not available in open source. Novell was our best option,” she says. “We’re also excited about Filr and the easy Plus, the IT staff was already experienced file access it provides our mobile users. It’s with Novell, and their Novell Gold PartnerSM, the missing piece to the puzzle—Filr gives us To read more customer success stories, visit: www.novell.com/success Skyward IT Services, demonstrated how eas- the convenience of the cloud with the security ily Linux-based systems could be migrated to of being on-premise. The sharing option of- Contact your local Novell Solutions the latest Novell technology which supports fers much-needed features similar to Google Provider, or call Novell at: both Linux and Windows platforms. Drive. Filr met the need before we knew we had it.” 1 800 714 3400 U.S./Canada “Novell’s newest product offering includes in- 1 801 861 1349 Worldwide tegration for Windows Active Directory which And, favorite features in Novell GroupWise— is necessary for some of our virtual server sent items properties, retract-resend-delete, Novell, Inc. 1800 South Novell Place applications,” she says. “Skyward built our custom scheduling, change-to mail items, Provo, UT 84606 USA original Novell network, and it had been stable and busy search—have been welcomed back for 10-plus years with only one directory out- by district users. age. Overall network stability was our number one concern under the open-source model. “GroupWise gives us higher levels of security Demands of new statewide testing initiatives and a feature set that was sorely missed by required a more secure, stable, scalable and users,” she says. manageable infrastructure.” Now, without frequent network outages, Kov- The IT department whole-heartedly supported nesky can focus on usability—such as add- Kovnesky’s recommendation, and the district ing mobile computing capabilities. “We all started the 2013 school year running on a have higher productivity because the system Novell system again. The new system inclu ded hasn’t gone down since school started. I don’t Novell Open Enterprise Server, Novell iPrint, receive emergency text messages at 5 a.m. Novell GroupWise® with mobile data synch- anymore,” she says. ronization, Novell Filr and Novell ZENworks®. In the near future, the district plans to deploy Results ZENworks Mobile Management and the mo- The previous year running open source— bile capabilities in Novell iPrint. with external support costs, additional inte- gration costs and the expense of frequent Kovnesky concludes, “We’ve increased net- outages—ended up costing the Mukwonago work performance and stability ten-fold since Area School District more than the prior 10 years we returned to Novell. We’ve had zero outages combined running on Novell systems. and are able to deploy applications with ease. We’ve reduced the network administration “Open source software isn’t free,” Kovnesky workload in ways I never thought possible.” says. “It’s like ‘free puppy syndrome.’ It’s going 468-001642-001 | 11/13 | © 2013 Novell, Inc. All rights reserved. Novell, the Novell logo, GroupWise, NetWare and ZENworks are registered trademarks, and Novell Gold Partner is a service mark of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries. 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