Brazilian National Service for Industrial Training Chooses Cisco VXI

Cisco
Systems, Inc. announced that SENAI (the Brazilian National Service for
Industrial Training) in Santa Catarina has decided to invest in desktop
virtualization using Cisco VXI (Virtualization Experience Infrastructure).

With Cisco’s solution, SENAI has eliminated the limitations of a traditional PC
environment.

Prior to their virtualization initiative,
three of the SENAI/ SC chosen branches had IT environments with 300 computers,
each with different configurations. This required IT to maintain a large number
of OS at once. The lack of mobility was also a problem, as applications with
greater hardware requirements and limited numbers of licenses could be used
only in specific laboratories. By adopting Cisco VXI, SENAI/SC has reduced
maintenance costs, simplified IT management, and can now provide daily
maintenance for their users, as compared to their previous monthly maintenance
schedule.

Cisco VXI is an open solution, validated
for virtual workloads and incorporating products and technologies from all
Cisco network architectures, from collaboration to Borderless Networks to Data
Center.

In less than one year of operation,
SENAI/SC realized several benefits from their new virtualized
environment. Easier desktop management has resulted in a reduction in maintenance costs, as less time is spent on maintenance issues.
Waiting times for application installation have also fallen, and applications
are available within a day. And there is no longer any need to physically enter
the laboratory. In addition, biannual maintenance processes that took months
are no longer required, because the entire environment can be automatically
rebuilt every week.

Other benefits include scalability of the
servers that support the environment and the storage to guarantee project
performance. Equipment downtime has been reduced, and equipment replacement and
redistribution is much easier, as there is no storage, operating system or
specific configurations.

The solution has also made it easier to
schedule classes because the environment also offers mobility. There is no
longer any need for users physically enter the laboratory to access specific
applications. Now, any application can run in any classroom. It is much easier
to allocate activities to specific classrooms.

"Apart
from all the benefits, the solution is environmentally friendly because it
considerably reduces energy used either to power the equipment or for cooling.
We obtained more than 70% savings in electricity consumption after replacing
the whole traditional computer and monitor by the zero client and LED monitor",
said Claudio Farias Selau, network analyst SENAI/SC.

"The
great differentiator of the adopted solution was the ability to have a great
flexibility and agility in the allocation of technology resources that can
really help the pedagogical project of SENAI/SC. With the virtualization
SENAI/SC will have the ease and speed of deployment processes as well as the
control of educational technology resources", said Ricardo Santos,
business development manager for Cisco Brazil’s Education sector.

During the first phase of the project, 325
desktops were virtualized at on SENAI/SC branches. Given the success of the
operation, two more branches were virtualized, totaling 975 virtualized
desktops.

The solution is based on Cisco and NetApp
equipment and VMware software. TELTEC Networks, a Cisco Premier Certified
Partner, is the project integrator.

Technical
Data: Equipment and features:

• Cisco UCS C-Series C250 Server:  these servers offer processing
  capacity and memory. Memory can be doubled through upgrades.
• Storage
  NetApp FAS2240: can support up to 400 virtual
  desktops simultaneously. In addition to storing the virtual environment, it is
  also used as a file server.
• Power
  over Ethernet supported by Cisco Catalyst 2960 Switches: used to provide zero clients with connectivity and power.
• VMware
  View Premier Bundle: desktop virtualization
  software, which includes application virtualization features (ThinApp) and
  fast, image-based desktop creation (Composer)
• Cisco VXC 2211 Zero Client: virtualization
  clients with no storage devices, operation system or mechanical parts. The zero
  clients support the PCoIP protocol and provide excellent performance in rich
  media environments.