S O LU T I O N SIT Package

SALFORD CITY COLLEGES TAT E O F T H E A RT D I G I TA L T R A N S F O R M AT I O N S, E M P O W E R I N G S T U D E N T S W I T H 21S T C E N T U RY L E A R N I N G E X P E R I E N C E S

With five outstanding centres, they pride themselves on their high values, quality standards and excellent facilities.

Their mission is to ‘Inspire and empower people to create and take opportunities to enrich lives through learning’ and this year sees a huge focus on making that happen through cutting edge digital resources. As part of their £9m investment into developing their centres and with our help, Salford City College have launched a number of high-tech and highly exciting Digital Learning Zones (DLZs) across their sites, for the start of September term 2016.

They wanted to make sure their quality of service for students working remotely was just as good as the service they offered for their students on campus.

Case Study

ICT

S E CTO REducation

How Chess Broke the MouldThe DLZs allow students to share and collaborate via Canvas and Cloud services offered by Microsoft Office 365’s platform.

The sophistication of facilities means the college can now support any device, breaking the mould in traditional learning environments and enabling a Bring Your Own Device strategy (BYOD), a first if it’s kind within the education sector in Greater Manchester.

Our engagement started with a strategic review of the College’s IT Services; including a detailed health-check of the IT infrastructure and systems together with a high-level skills analysis. This resulted in the joint development of an IT Strategy and a three-year investment plan; and with Salford City College’s drive to be the best, we embarked on a challenging Digital Transformation plan starting with the DLZ.

A Resounding SuccessIn just four weeks, Chess successfully deployed 500 VDI seats and 340 Dell PCs, but crucially we enabled the College to achieve their objective of ‘significantly enhancing the learning experience of thousands of students’ before the start of the new term 2016/2017.

Paving the way for more online and blended learning — staff and students can now quickly and easily access desktops and applications from any PC on campus. This means they can work more flexibly from a variety of locations and use their own devices on and off the college network.

N E I L E D WA R D S S E R V E R A D M I N I S T R ATO R S A L F O R D C I T Y C O L L E G E

Significant changes required, limited finance, extremely short deadline… yet this large scale brief was achieved within budget and met deadlines.D E B O R A H M I L L A R D I R E CTO R O F D I G I TA L & I T S E R V I C E S S A L F O R D C I T Y C O L L E G E

Chess SolutionWorking in partnership with Salford City College,

our learnings and recommendations were used to

shape the overall strategy, implementation plan

and budget allocation, even down to determining

what aspects of the project could be CapEx

Vs. OpEx.

Our team of experts lead presentations to both

the IT team and Senior Leadership Team (SLT).

It was clear from the start that we had become a

trusted strategic ICT partner.

Salford City College wanted to launch their new

DLZs for the start of term, with less than five weeks

and five separate sites, this was a truly ambitious

plan. We produced water tight project plans and

streamlined operations by preparing equipment

off-site and delivering to secure locations with

minimum packaging. We put contingencies in place

and had extra support staff on stand-by so even

when we were hit by unforeseen building delays,

our dedicated team worked around the clock into

the evenings and weekends to ensure the schedule

stayed on track.

ChallengeImplement a centralised end user computing

solution, replacing aging desktop hardware across

all five sites and launching the new DLZs in line

with their new IT strategy.

Salford City College was originally made up of

three separate colleges across five sites, which

successfully merged over seven years ago. The

original Colleges had operated as separate entities,

with completely different IT infrastructures across

five different sites making it tricky to keep up

to date.

The infrastructure they had was aging and in need

of updating to the latest Windows desktop version

and suite of applications.

The challenge for Chess was to implement a

centralised end user computing solution, replace

aging desktop hardware across all five sites and

launch the new DLZs in line with their new

IT strategy.

This is where Chess added significant value.

Taking stock of the IT estate across all sites was a

fundamental building block to understanding the

next steps and catalysing the digital

transformation project.

For More Information Please Get in TouchCall Us Now: 0808 149 6867 Web: ChessICT.co.uk

Chess ICT delivered an exceptional piece of work, demonstrating strong technical and strategic capability. Achieving substantial improvements in system management and performance together with a well specified and designed VDI infrastructure.R I C K E L LY C L I E N T S E R V I C E S M A N A G E R C H E S S

Results• Huge savings in IT management and support

• State of the art Digital Learning Zones

• Log in times 40% quicker

• 50% reduction in average load times of programmes and applications

Products & ServicesProducts

• Cisco UCS blade chassis and 7 x blade servers

• Nimble CS300 storage

• JetNexus load balancers

• 500 x iGel Thin client

• 340 x Dell PCs and monitors

• VMware Horizon 7 Enterprise

Services

• ICT Infrastructure and skills audit

• Development of three-year IT strategy

• Professional installation services

• PC imaging and delivery to desktop

• Managed support contract (three years)

• Trend Anti-Virus

For More Information Please Get in TouchCall Us Now: 0808 149 6867 Web: ChessICT.co.uk

The new infrastructure VDI delivers a dynamic suite of software that can be updated, changed and distributed in a 12 hour window. The VMware View management console means only one team member is needed to monitor all active student and staff sessions. Support calls have therefore dropped as it is easier for staff and students to log on and manage new PCs.N E I L E D WA R D S S E R V E R A D M I N I S T R ATO R S A L F O R D C I T Y C O L L E G E

Ric Kelly, Client Services Manager, has been phenomenal, he understands the unique pressures and requirements of working in the further education sector.M AT T H E W H I G G S I T M A N A G E R S A L F O R D C I T Y C O L L E G E

Office 365 has revolutionised the way we work, print costs have significantly reduced and staff productivity levels are much higher. Over 50% of staff are already using it, 41% of which have reported the benefits of working more collaboratively, sharing folders and documents securely internally and externally. 20% of staff have even gone on to activate Office 365 on their own devices.S H A R O N J O N E S S O F T WA R E S U P P O RT A D M I N I S T R ATO R

Testimonials

About ChessAt Chess, we design and deliver award winning bespoke ICT solutions and services to meet your needs.

Our 25 years’ experience, 80 strong ICT Team, outstanding customer service and technical expertise are just a few of the things that sets us apart.But the real key to our ICT partnerships lie within our people. We’re passionate about technology and unlocking its potential, we’re focused on listening, understanding, unearthing unique solutions and building trusted relationships. Our people are committed to our core values: Quality and Passion which is why we’re fast becoming one of UK’s most trusted ICT partners.

But the real key to our ICT partnerships lie within our people. We’re passionate about technology and unlocking its potential, we’re focused on listening, understanding, unearthing unique solutions and building trusted relationships. Our people are committed to our core values: Quality and Passion which is why we’re fast becoming one of UK’s most trusted ICT partners.

For More Information Please Get in TouchCall Us Now: 0808 149 6867 Web: ChessICT.co.uk