Troy School District located in Troy, MI has more than 12,000 students enrolled and over 5,000 computers amongst its 12 elementary, 4 middle and 3 high schools.

Read how their IT staff is using SVS to take the sting out of their application packaging challenges.

Troy Schools provides its students a top notch education which means that graduates have an edge in admissions to higher education and in the competitive job market. Its students have access to cutting-edge technology.

Troy School facilities are technologically-advanced. Troy voters recently approved a $119 million bond issue to fund improvements at all district facilities. The district's future is being guided through a long-range strategic planning process known as Troy Tomorrow. This future-focused, student-centered planning process is committed to its vision of making the Troy School District "America's premier school district." Under this process, long-range improvement efforts in district communications and educational climate are being targeted. The Troy Tomorrow vision is supported by comprehensive curriculum offerings throughout the entire K-12 process. Every major curricular area undergoes a thorough process of review, development, and implementation to ensure programs that challenge our students.

Driven by a vision that technology can help a school district function more efficiently and effectively, Michigan's Troy School District recently completed the enormous task of implementing voice, video and data communications in each of its 19 school buildings and within every classroom in the district. The comprehensive project also provided communications for Troy through the simultaneous installation of two WANs, linking the school district to city buildings. An estimated $750,000 was saved on the implementation.

Troy School District is one the longest using Altiris customer's to date. They have been using Altiris since the days of 4.x They own Altiris Client Management Suite Level 1 and with the help of XCEND are about to complete an order for Client Management Suite Level 2 with SVS being the business driver.

The Challenge

• Training rooms constantly having to be rebuilt for different courses for staff
• Classrooms computers constantly needing to be rebuilt from IT savvy students and new applications for curriculum needed to be deployed
• Part time IT staff, Full time teachers who do not have the ability to spend a significant amount of time on IT troubleshooting and complex processes.

Reducing downtime of equipment and the ability of students trying to compromise a computer's stability is a number one priority. In addition to having a part time IT staff an easy to use and maintain system is critical for success. A highly distributed environment and computers which are completely connected wirelessly presents unique management challenges that the district desperately requires a solution for.

The Solution

With Altiris Deployment Solution, Altiris Software Virtualization Solution and Altiris Local Recovery Solution Scott Hardie from XCEND has created a unique and easy to manage solution to the district's 5,000 machines. By creating a Hardware Independent Image of Windows XP for the HP and Dell desktops and laptops Scott has moved the district away from having to manage its 40+ images based off of vendor, model and curriculum. By creating a SOE (Standard Operating Environment) Troy School District has the ability to now manage an easy to build upon image for as long as Windows XP remains in use within the district. By customizing Altiris Deployment Solution and Linux automation Scott has created a Linux based Deployment Framework which looks up the client's IP address and deploys the Hardware Independent Image from a server within one of the 19 buildings in the district without ever having to transverse across the WAN. By leveraging Linux automation, and Deployment Server's Firm utility the SMBIOS information is queried against the Deployment Server's database and only the drivers and files necessary for that model are injected into the image prior to Microsoft Sysprep Mini Setup occurs. This further reduces the image size by quite a bit and allows the easy replacement of newer drivers and or addition of new hardware platforms without having to rebuild the image. The Hardware Independent Image contains absolutely no software including Windows XP standard applications, everything has been converted into an Altiris Software Virtualization Layer and applied in order based of application dependencies, asset assignment to staff or student, school and or curriculum based applications required.

By leveraging Altiris SVS the staff is able to create application layers quickly and easily without having to necessarily need the skills required to full package in Wise. When requiring computers to have a different application version Deployment Server job are leveraged to quickly disable and delete older versions of the application and deploy and activate the newer versions with no worries of conflicts. Computers in Training Rooms which need certain applications at one time during the day and others later the same day can be managed with a single drag and drop job within the Deployment Server console. Role and Scope based security has been setup so that only certain staff within their respective school can manage their computers, layers, etc. While still providing the overall IT staff full access to the entire district.

Applications which were previously corrupted by students either accidently and or deliberately can easily be "reset" allowing higher availability in addition to stopping students from using the excuse of "My computer doesn't work I can't do the assignment."

All applications, printer settings, wireless settings, security settings are being delivered in a layered format to allow easy changes to the environment. To further cut down on imaging time Altiris Recovery Solution Pro has been used to take an initial snapshot and disable it to take the system back to its original SOE and then deploy the necessary layers back on.

The Results

• Used to completely streamline the deployment of 1400 laptops to the district's elementary student students.
• IT can image a computer in less than 3 minutes. Providing an unprecedented deployment time.
• SVS was able to package troublesome, poorly designed software in less than 5 minutes where it normally took days of troubleshooting.

Last year XCEND helped with a complete Desktop migration refresh leveraging Altiris completing a computer in less than 30 minutes or less. This year leveraging Linux a net computer and all applications and settings can be deployed in under 10 while still providing a high degree of flexibility in deployment without having to have applications within the image. In addition the ability to deploy the entire fleet of 1400 laptop's for students this year in less than 30 minutes and completely manage them wirelessly.

Software Virtualization has been an incredible step for Troy School District in getting a ROI from Altiris that they have long been hoping to achieve.