Application Delivery to the Enterprise

Jeremy HoltDirector of Information Services

AboutUs

Grace University was founded on June 1, 1943 in Omaha, NE. Grace is a compact urban campus located two blocks from the historical downtown business district.

Each bachelor level student at Grace University pursues a double major. The first is in Biblical Studies and the second in a professional or vocational field of his/her choice, such as Psychology, Teacher Education, Intercultural Studies, Nursing, among others.

Grace University has 300-350 students locally, and a number of students in other countries such as China, Mali, and El Salvador.

The current economic situation has forced many IT departments to cut costs and increase

functionality to remain competitive.

What was the process of rethinking the management, delivery, support, and

total cost of ownership in thischallenging environment?

Reasons and Purpose

• Grace University was coming to the end of a number of contracts and leases for equipment, services, and licensing.

• Opportunity to find ways to improve usability, productivity, and total cost of ownership (TCO).

• Analyze existing infrastructure in relation to providing support to the students, faculty and staff.

• Place Grace University on a planned course of excellence for the future.

Application Delivery

The process of providing the end users withthe tools necessary to address the

purpose of the organization.

Defining the Project

• What are the driving forces of necessity?• What is the current infrastructure like?• What needs will be addressed?• What options did we have to provide

solutions?• What were the benefits of the solutions we

chose?

Driving Forces of Necessity

• Desktops are nearing end of lease.• Upgrading to current software versions has been

reluctant and slow because of the limited capabilities of existing hardware, and time to implement with the current architectural design.

• Storage space of the existing servers was nearing capacity.

• Servers were reaching, and in some cases past, life expectancy of the hardware.

Assessment of Current Infrastructure

• Create committees of key user groups to define their specific needs

• Inventory equipment to define age, single points of failure, and availability

• Inventory software to define licensing, and necessity

Needs to be Addressed

• Replace desktops coming off lease• Upgrade server hardware• Increase data storage capacity• Reduce single point of failures• Simplify software upgrade and patch process• Simplify and increase Help Desk support• Expand user accessibility

Solution #1:Status Quo

• Purchase new desktops• Replace servers with new hardware• Add physical drives to existing file servers to

increase data storage capacity

Needs Not Addressed

• Reduce single point of failures• Simplify software upgrade and patch process• Simplify and increase Help Desk support• Expand user accessibility

Solution #2:Application Delivery

• Replace desktops with lower cost thin clients and use Citrix XenApp for application delivery

• Virtualize servers with Citrix XenServer• Add SAN storage with Equallogic

Benefits of Solution #2

• Reduced single point of failures• Simplified software upgrade and patch process• Simplified and increased Help Desk support• Expanded user accessibility• Reduced Initial Investment and TCO• Changed licensing structure• Highly scalable environment for growth

HP Thin Clients

• Windows CE imbedded w/ XenApp integration• Gold image deployed via flash drive in 30 sec.• Longer Life Expectancy– No moving parts– Lower power consumption

• Software updates happen server-side• Smaller footprint• Server-centralized data storage

Citrix XenApp• Application Delivery

- Thin Client Integration (local users)- Web based (multi-platform remote/mobile users)- iPhone Application (mobile phone users)- Eliminates VPN- Citrix Farm

- Load Balanced Servers- High Availability

- Applications published to users through AD security groups

- Help Desk shadowing for centralized and remote support

Citrix ReceiverFor iPhone

Citrix XenServer

• Single vendor to support the whole stack• Integration with SAN solution• Reduced energy consumption and rack space

through Virtualization• Provision new servers from gold images

Equallogic SAN Storage

• Virtualized storage to optimize XenServer Environment

• San and Server Management via a single console

• Increased data storage capacity dynamically• Ability to move virtual servers between

physical hardware for high availability, load balancing, redundancy

• Snapshots

Cost Benefits• Thin Clients– Desktops cost 2-3 times more for hardware– Time of workstation deployment/rebuild– Lower (TCO)• Longer life expectancy• Lower power consumption• Smaller footprint

– Software updates are only done on XenApp Servers requiring less man hours and faster adoption

– Server-centralized data storage

Cost Benefit Cont.

• XenApp– Life expectancy of existing PCs increased– Centralized support for world-wide user base

• XenServer– Reduced Server OS licensing requirements– Reduced power consumption– Reduced rack space requirements– Reduced server room cooling requirements

Cost Benefit Cont.

• Equallogic San Storage– Increased data storage needs– Server deployment• Time and utilization

Maintaining Citrix

• Support Structure– Internal Resources• Ability to absorb day to day management with existing

FTEs

– Emineo Group• Citrix Gold Partner• System Upgrades• Tier Three Support• Strategy Development

Review

Grace University has provided a highly scalable IT environment, and broadened its services to include local, remote, and mobile users.

The University met the challenge by introducing a blend of Citrix technologies, server virtualization, SAN storage, and user thin clients.

Q & A

Jeremy HoltDirector of Information Services

Email - jholt@graceu.eduPhone - 402.449.2935

Application Delivery to the Enterprise

Jeremy HoltDirector of Information Services