Alvarado Independent School District With EMC VNX

EMC
Corporation announced that Alvarado Independent School
District, an Alvarado, Texas-based district serving 3,200 K-12 students, has
replaced its Dell Compellent storage environment with EMC VNX unified storage
to increase performance while accelerating its journey to cloud
computing.

Alvarado is using EMC VNX with VMware vSphere and VMware View
virtualization solutions to achieve a 100% virtualized server environment and
roll out a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) to students.

Customer Benefits:

• ROI Achieved – Alvarado is able to spend
  less on hardware and IT support while delivering more services to students and
  reducing its data center footprint.
• Performance – Alvarado can handle
  "boot surges" using a "FLASH 1st" strategy when hundreds of
  students simultaneously access the EMC unified storage infrastructure, which is
  equipped with SSDs and EMC FAST Cache.
• Efficiency – Alvarado’s IT staff can manage its virtualized
  and physical server infrastructure and VDI through a single-pane view with EMC
  Unisphere, saving the district time and money.
• Agility – Alvarado’s private cloud enables it to virtualize its server infrastructure and roll out virtual desktops to its
  students from laptops, iPads, iPhones and other intelligent
  devices.

Alvarado’s virtualized IT environment was growing so rapidly
that its prior Dell Compellent storage infrastructure was not able to keep up
with performance and scalability demands. This was affecting its students’
ability to quickly access online resources. Alvarado was also reaching
technical limits with its legacy storage for how fast it could virtualize and
deploy its cloud infrastructure.

"When we replaced Dell Compellent with EMC VNX unified
storage, the barriers to virtualization dissolved – our cloud finally began to
blossom," said Kyle Berger, Executive Director of Technology Services,
Alvarado. "We currently provide a laptop to every student from 4th through
8th grade. In our plans to expand our
investment in program, we are working to make all of the laptops VDI
enabled. Through the testing of this
program, we learned that every time students change classes and powered up
their laptops, hundreds of boots storm our infrastructure and there’s an
incredible activity spike. With EMC VNX and our ‘FLASH 1st’ strategy using FAST
Cache, our storage infrastructure will simply absorb these surges without
affecting users. VNX unified storage gives us a solid foundation so when that
bell rings and the laptops come on, we’re ready to teach our students."

Berger commented: "These improvements in performance
and agility have opened the door for us to achieve a nearly 100% virtualization
environment within 18 months With VMware View and EMC VNX, we can provide
access to virtual desktops from laptops, iPads, iPhones and essentially any
other intelligent device. We already have 100 virtual desktops online and
expect to reach 2,000 users in 18 months. The excellent integration between
VMware and EMC VNX is also helping us drive faster toward the cloud."

"With virtualization and decreased reliance on physical
hardware, we expect to spend substantially less on hardware and IT support
while delivering more services to students," said Berger. "In fact, I
predict that my data center will shrink from what is now a massive room to just
a few racks."

"The EMC Unisphere management tool gives us a single
pane to manage our infrastructure easily – whether it’s virtual machines, virtual
desktops, physical servers or storage," continued Berger. "EMC offers
a holistic approach, excellent integration between our VNX and VMware
infrastructures and the tools we need to manage this transformation efficiently
and rapidly. Plus, we get the power and reliability of EMC, which provides us
with plenty of resources, expertise and support to achieve our adoption of
cloud."

Alvarado ISD stores its cloud and physical infrastructure on
EMC VNX unified storage. The district’s most performance-intensive applications
such as Microsoft Office, AutoCad and video editing run on VNX Flash drives and
use EMC FAST Cache for maximum performance. EMC Unisphere software provides an interface for provisioning, monitoring and managing storage
for virtual and physical servers. Alvarado ISD’s environment is virtualized
using VMware vSphere. Alvarado ISD is also rolling out VDI with VMware View and
VCE Vblock Infrastructure Platforms.