Case Study: Cherry Creek School DistrictColorado School District Improves Mac User Communication & Productivity

while reducing Server Hardware and IT Management Costs

Challenge: Server Consolidation and Windows Migration Leads to Mac User Communication Breakdown

Historically, both Apple and Dell computers have had a strong presence in the education market. As a result, many educational institutions

rely on both Macintosh and Windows-based PCs for everything from classroom assignments, interactive presentations, and administrative

tasks. Colorado’s Cherry Creek School District is no exception, and their IT department supports 51,000 students and 8,000 teachers,

administrators, and support personnel, 7,500 of which are Mac users accessing the network via both district-owned and personal devices.

Prior to 2010, each of Cherry Creek’s 60 schools separately determined which workstations, programs, and servers to employ on their

individual campuses. This resulted in a mixed environment of Mac workstations and servers as well as Windows-based workstations and

servers, all requiring district IT sta� management and support. This created many challenges, not least of which was an enormous backlog

of user data for central systems such as VoiceMail, Wireless, VPN and Student System access; the lack of Active Directory for elementary

schools; and redundant accounts for every time a user moved locations within the district.

To reduce long-term hardware, maintenance and management costs; achieve better security for the network district-wide; and signi�-

cantly reduce the backlog of redundant data, Cherry Creek School District began a data consolidation project in 2010, one of the �rst steps

of which was to centralize the infrastructure for all of the district’s school and administrative sites onto VMware and Windows-based

servers. The school district’s e�orts reduced their infrastructure from 140 servers comprised of XServe and Windows 2003 to four Windows

2008 servers. Almost immediately upon the Windows 2008 server migration, IT sta� experienced an onslaught of Mac-focused service

requests and network problems from the district’s more than 7,500 Mac users, including:

- Macs taking 20 minutes or longer to gain access to the centralized server

- Shared �les becoming "locked" for no reason

- Some �les simply disappeared from the server altogether

- Other �les were accessible via Macs, but when opened, were corrupted

“The schools were very unhappy—the troubles we were experiencing had a direct negative impact on the classroom and was interrupting

instruction,” says Cindi Hotzinger, Senior Network Administrator and Server Team Lead at Cherry Creek School District in Colorado.

The problems experienced by Cherry Creek School District’s Mac users—and IT sta�—are common to mixed platform environments, and

they’re bound to increase: As Apple’s enterprise traction continues to accelerate—IDC recently reported Apple’s 19th consecutive quarter

of market share growth—fueled by direct purchases by companies, school districts and other organizations, as well as the

consumerization of IT, more and more Windows-based organizations are struggling to integrate Apple products into their IT ecosystem.

GroupLogic’s ExtremeZ-IP product is designed to easily and quickly integrate Macintosh computers into a Windows Server environment,

eliminating the operational roadblocks presented when education and enterprise users cannot access �les and other essential work�ow

information in the same seamless manner, if at all, as Windows PC users.

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Solution: GroupLogic’s ExtremeZ-IP

The IT team searched for solutions on Mac and Windows forums. Hotzinger remembered that under the old, de-centralized network, one

school had been using ExtremeZ-IP since 2005 to successfully to solve �le and access issues for Mac users connecting to the school’s on-site

Windows server. She contacted GroupLogic, and inquired about implementing the solution district-wide on the new, centralized network, and

after a successful trial period, purchased four ExtremeZ-IP licenses for the district-wide network. The solution was deployed district-wide within

a few minutes in February 2011: all connectivity, shared access, and �le corruption problems experienced by Mac users trying to access the

district’s servers were instantly resolved, and no longer pose a problem for the district’s IT sta�, teachers or students.

“There is nothing else out there that could handle the connectivity and Active Directory access for all the users on a network like ours,” says

Hotzinger.

“After the ExtremeZ-IP deployment, Mac users on our network can access Active Directory and �les with the same

speed and ease as Windows-based PC users, while our IT sta� is freed-up to focus on other priorities. This just wasn’t

possible before the ExtremeZ-IP deployment,” says Cindi Hotzinger, Senior Network Administrator and Server Team

Lead.

She adds that because ExtremeZ-IP’s solution allowed the district to move forward with centralization e�orts, the value of the purchase has

already had an immediate and lasting e�ect. Everyone from her IT team to the district’s teachers are now able to concentrate on mission critical

tasks, such as managing data consolidation and network security, or teaching, respectively, rather than time-consuming, piecemeal

troubleshooting, “As trustees of the public funds it was our responsibility to spend every penny wisely and e�ectively. There’s no money in our

budget for new computers, so we needed something that would give our existing Macs and Windows-based PCs immediate access to the

school district’s Central Shares and Home Directories. Extreme Z-IP is the only solution that allowed us to do so,” she says.

About GroupLogic

GroupLogic® helps enterprise and education IT organizations simply and securely integrate diverse computing platforms into enterprise

environments, connecting employees and students to enterprise �les, content and assets to facilitate a more productive and e�cient work

environment. With more than two decades of experience, GroupLogic leads the marketplace in helping IT organizations e�ectively and easily

manage the integration of Apple products into the enterprise ecosystem. Whether IT organizations are looking to integrate existing Apple

assets, purchase additional Apple hardware like Macs and iPads, or want to take advantage of the hardware costs savings that accompany the

adoption of IT consumerization, GroupLogic enables IT organizations to easily and securely manage the rapid integration of diverse platforms

while ensuring resources are optimized. GroupLogic enables the enterprise to focus on what is really important – competitive di�erentiation,

improved employee productivity, mitigated risk and reduced costs. GroupLogic’s proven products—ExtremeZ-IP, ArchiveConnect, and

MassTransit—are in use by some of the world’s most innovative companies, including Christie’s, International Greetings and Omnicom Group.

3GroupLogic®, mobilEcho™, ExtremeZ-IP®, MassTransit®, Zidget®, ShadowConnect™ and ArchiveConnect™ are all registered or unregistered trademarksof Group Logic, Inc. All other trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners. © 2011 Group Logic, Inc. All Rights Reserved.