Technology Refresh for Westgate School

Technology Refresh Enhances Education Excellence for The Westgate School.

With a recent building expansion completed, The Westgate Secondary School required an upgraded infrastructure, modernising the schools technology environment and enhancing the facilities further.

Technology integrator Krome Technologies supplied and installed a range of new equipment including a storage & backup solution, virtualised server estate using VMware, desktop PCs, digital signage & SMART boards.

The Westgate School, based in Slough provides secondary and sixth form education to around 930 full time students, ranging in age from 11-19 years old.

The school, originally founded in 1958, has recently expanded its facilities with a modern two storey technology building, providing students with additional workshops, classrooms and new ICT suites, along with a business area on the first floor.

The primary objective for the technology refresh was to implement a server & storage infrastructure that is capable of supporting the schools expansion, whilst having the ability to scale further in the future. With limited internal IT resource IT Manager, Chris Green wanted a low cost, yet high performing solution that required minimal management moving forward.

Krome implemented a consolidated virtualised server environment for Westgate School, replacing its 6 old servers with 2 new Dell servers, running VMware vSphere 4.0.

This new virtual environment now runs all of the schools critical applications including SIMS school management software, Equitrac print solution, cashless catering system, remote access facilities and Microsoft Exchange 2010, fully implemented by Krome as part of the project.

In combination with the virtualised server estate, Krome installed and configured two replicating Dell EqualLogic PS Series iSCSI Storage arrays. The Dell ISCSI SAN’s provide simple, rapid integration with the schools IP network, and offer simple all inclusive built in functionality, simplifying the management and maximising availability.

As part of the overall project, Krome also installed 182 new Dell Desktop PCs and screens, 8 AMX Digital signage screens and 9 SMART boards. The Krome consultants also configured Microsoft Windows 2008R2, installed Microsoft Exchange 2010, installed and configured Symantec Backup Exec, and migrated all of the schools existing data over to the new system. In addition to the above equipment, Krome also implemented a new HP Switch backbone for the network and a new UPS solution.

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