Surfing and Sourcing, Northwest Catholic School District #16 in Saskatchewan Finds Savings and Stability in 'True' Thin Client Network from Symbio Technologies.NEW ROCHELLE New Rochelle (rōshĕl`), city (1990 pop. 67,625), Westchester co., SE N.Y., on Long Island Sound; settled by Huguenots 1688, inc. as a village 1858, as a city 1899. , N.Y. -- A year ago, Tom Hawboldt, technology coordinator for the Northwest Catholic School District No. 16 in North Battleford, Saskatchewan North Battleford is a small city in west central Saskatchewan, Canada. It is located directly across the North Saskatchewan River from the town of Battleford. Together, the two communities are known as The Battlefords. , Canada, surfed the Internet for information on the latest advancements in computer networks for school systems. Finding what he was looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. , he contacted Symbio Technologies in the New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. suburbs, which in turn called its value-added reseller A value-added reseller (VAR) is a company that adds some feature(s) to an existing product(s), then resells it (usually to end-users) as an integrated product or complete "turn-key" solution. in Ontario to team up for an international success story which has resulted in "more teachers -- not just more computers -- and a great system that is super stable and which has saved the district a bunch of money." That's the story Hawboldt (t.hawboldt@nwcsd.ca) tells of how the District built a state-of-the-art network based on true diskless thin clients ... low-cost, low-energy computers without hard or floppy disk drives, CD-ROMs, or embedded software Instructions that permanently reside in a ROM or flash memory chip. Embedded software may be immediately available to the CPU or, for faster execution, may be transferred to RAM first and then executed. which can become corrupted by viruses or become obsolete. When contacted by the District, Symbio Technologies in New Rochelle called Brian Zammit, at Systems Aligned in Brampton, Ontario Brampton (IPA: ˈbræmptən, ˈbræmtən) is a city in the GTA of Ontario, Canada and the seat of Peel Region. As of the 2006 census, Brampton's population stood at 433,806. . Some nine months later, the District has replaced 122 Sun(R) Microsystems Sun Ray units with The Symbiont symbiont /sym·bi·ont/ (sim´bi-ont) (sim´be-ont) an organism living in a state of symbiosis. symbiont an organism or species living in a state of symbiosis. (TM) Solution -- servers, software, and diskless thin clients provided through Systems Aligned. The Symbiont solution, said Hawboldt, "eliminated the vendor lock-in In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in, customer lock-in, lock-in is where a customer is dependent on a vendor for products and services and cannot move to another vendor without substantial switching costs, real and/or perceived. that the District previously faced, resulting in significant cost savings and lower maintenance with no decrease in performance." Working under a planned replacement program, he said plans call for the District to build upon its Linux(R) foundation by adding as many as 400 more diskless thin clients in early 2005. Hawboldt said while the previous system worked well, "the District was concerned that as equipment aged and warranty periods expired we would have to purchase high-priced replacement parts and software available only from Sun. We also wanted to use Linux and Open Source educational software because we believed it would run better if the operating system was Linux." 'A Real Team Effort' "Working with the Northwest Catholic School District No. 16 was a real team effort," said Zammit (bzammit@systemsaligned.com), who with partner Kanwar Sandhu formed Systems Aligned four years ago. "Not only did the business lead come from Symbio Technologies, but we also received superior, hands-on support from Roger Del Russo and Gideon Romm, the co-founders of the company. "This was our first installation of The Symbiont, and Roger and Gideon were very quick to respond and were very supportive. Overall, I am very happy to report that 'the stuff just works, right out of the box.'" Zammit said the project called for Linux thin clients and servers to be integrated into the a mixed environment of Windows(R) and Sun systems. Software from CodeWeavers Inc. was to be used to deliver Windows Web browser The program that serves as your front end to the Web on the Internet. In order to view a site, you type its address (URL) into the browser's Location field; for example, www.computerlanguage.com, and the home page of that site is downloaded to you. plug-ins to Linux Web browsing, with all other applications for students to be Open Source software available online. Two major installations have now been completed," said Zammit. "The District ordered 122 diskless thin clients and four servers configured with The Symbiont," he said. "The first installation was in March, when we deployed 60 each in two classrooms. Then, over the summer, at a new school, the deployment was finished." 'Delighted by All Measures' How happy is Northwest Catholic School District No. 16 and Hawboldt with The Symbiont and the installation over all? "We're delighted, by all measures," he said. "The Symbiont Solution is excellent -- quick and painless to install, easy to update, and it doesn't break. And we can use the remote administrator component of The Symbiont to check out problems or questions anywhere on the system. "The bottom line is always the bottom line," Hawboldt said. "Today, the District has 90% thin clients. When we finish replacing the old Suns with true diskless think clients, we'll be saving $400 per workstation. That's more than $400,000 over all ... money the District will use to hire more teachers, not just buy more computers. Then we will have achieved the best of both worlds -- more teachers and a great system that is super stable and which saves a bunch of money." About Symbio Technologies Symbio Technologies develops server software that manages diskless thin client networks running both Windows(R) and Linux applications. Rooted in the Open Source community, the company's flagship product -- The Symbiont Management Suite(TM) -- is based on LTSP LTSP Linux Terminal Server Project LTSP Lutheran Theological Seminary At Philadelphia LTSP Long Term Science Plan (NASA) (Linux Terminal Server Project Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) is an add-on package for Linux that allows many people to simultaneously use the same computer. Applications run on the server with a terminal known as a thin client handling input and output. These thin clients are also known as X terminals. ). Symbio Technologies markets to business, education and government users through a growing international network of authorized VARs. About Systems Aligned Systems Aligned is a professional IT services company. Founded in 2000, Systems Aligned provides consulting, implementation and technical support services support services Psychology Non-health care-related ancillary services–eg, transportation, financial aid, support groups, homemaker services, respite services, and other services in Linux and Open Source software to companies worldwide while helping them lower costs and add to their bottom lines. The Symbiont Management Suite is a trademark of Symbio Technologies. Other trademarks are properties of their respective owners. |
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