Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) announced today that
Montgomery Independent School District (ISD), located north of
Houston, Texas, has implemented a multi-phased program to modernize
and virtualize their academic computing systems using Citrix
XenDesktop™ and Citrix XenServer™. The first phase of Montgomery
ISD’s implementation utilized XenServer to virtualize and
consolidate their servers in a central datacenter; phase two, now
under way, expands that deployment to standardize on desktop
virtualization district-wide with XenDesktop. The school district
has already realized significant savings in time, energy, money and
personnel resources, and expects to expand these savings further in
the future.
With a limited number of information technology (IT) staff
available to serve more than 6,500 students across Montgomery ISD’s
eight schools, on-site service visits consumed hours of precious
time each week. Today, XenDesktop allows the district’s IT team to
create a single instance of the OS and applications in the
datacenter and deliver personalized desktops to classrooms on any
PC, laptop or thin client device. XenDesktop delivers centrally
managed, high-definition, virtual desktops to the district’s
existing PCs, providing all the advantages of centralized
management without the high cost of investing in new hardware. Best
of all, most issues can be addressed from the datacenter, with no
need to physically touch the computer in question – saving valuable
time.
“Many problems that would have caused us to send out a
technician can now be fixed from our desks. We’ve reduced response
time to issues from one week to usually just one to two days for
our virtual desktop users,” said George Thornton, Montgomery ISD
network operations manager. He added that the ability to deliver
applications via XenDesktop also eliminates the time-consuming task
of installing new software on each individual computer.
Academic Computing Virtualization with Citrix
With desktop and server virtualization solutions from Citrix,
Montgomery ISD has created an “academic computing virtualization”
environment, which provides a robust computing experience to
Montgomery ISD students and makes educational technology more
widely available – all the while saving time and money for the
school district itself. XenDesktop with HDX™ technology ensures a
rich, high-definition experience every time students log in, no
matter where they are or what kind of virtual desktop technology is
being used on the back end. FlexCast™ delivery technology, a
powerful new capability in XenDesktop, gives Thornton’s team the
flexibility to deliver any type of virtual desktop, to any user, on
any device – and to change this mix at any time as circumstances
require. This fits perfectly with Montgomery ISD’s future plans to
provide remote access via various mobile devices and netbooks.
Academic computing virtualization gives Montgomery ISD the
opportunity to look beyond the classroom. Thornton described how
phase three of the school district’s virtualization project will
provide remote access to students and faculty at home while
maintaining the security of the district's network using
XenDesktop, along with Citrix Access Gateway™ for secure remote
access solutions.
“Imagine a student who is unable to attend classes for an
extended period of time because of medical reasons. This will allow
them an opportunity to keep up with their schoolwork,” said
Thornton.
“Our vision,” added Thornton, “is to tear down the walls of the
classroom.”
Virtualization Solutions Increases Energy Savings
Montgomery ISD began to realize significant energy savings
immediately with their virtualization implementations. According to
a survey commissioned by the school district to quantify the energy
savings from its virtualization implementation, XenDesktop will
save Montgomery ISD an estimated $24,000 in energy costs this year.
Montgomery ISD counts its virtualization solutions as an important
part of the statewide goal to reduce operational costs by 30
percent over five years.
XenServer also plays a big role in energy savings for Montgomery
ISD, as the school district learned when virtualizing their
datacenter.
“The expense of powering and cooling our datacenter was costing
us as much as it was to outfit it. With XenServer, we’ve reduced
the number of physical servers by a ratio of 10 to one. Now each
physical server can run an average of 10 virtual servers while
using a fraction of the energy,” said Thornton.
In addition to energy savings, the school district can also
spend less on hardware replacement, because Citrix gives a longer
useful life to the desktop and laptop.
“Some industry recommendations suggest hardware refresh cycles
of three to four years. By running desktops virtually in the
datacenter with Citrix, we can extend the life of these existing
PCs significantly without compromising the user experience for
students in any way,” said Thornton. “Desktop virtualization also
gives us the option to convert some of our older machines to thin
clients, which have a life cycle of eight to 10 years. Changes like
these can make a huge difference in the bottom line, allowing us to
invest more in each student’s education, and less on expensive
hardware upgrades.”
“Montgomery ISD is faced with the same challenge as many
education systems – tightening budgets and aging technology,” said
Dave Podwojski, director of Citrix Government, Education &
Health. “Citrix’s desktop and server virtualization solutions are
the centerpiece of the academic computing virtualization
environment they’ve implemented to extend the life cycle of their
hardware and increase district-wide energy and cost savings,
thereby enabling Montgomery ISD to stretch their IT budget and meet
green mandates.”
About Citrix
Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) is a leading provider of
virtualization, networking and software-as-a-service (SaaS)
technologies for more than 230,000 organizations worldwide. Its
Citrix Delivery Center™, Citrix Cloud Center™ (C3) and Citrix
Online Services product families radically simplify computing for
millions of users, delivering applications as an on-demand service
to any user, in any location on any device. Citrix customers
include the world’s largest Internet companies, 99 percent of
Fortune Global 500 enterprises, and hundreds of thousands of small
businesses and prosumers worldwide. Citrix partners with over
10,000 companies worldwide in more than 100 countries. Founded in
1989, annual revenue in 2008 was $1.6 billion.
For Citrix Investors
This release contains forward-looking statements which are made
pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the
Securities Act of 1933 and of Section 21E of the Securities
Exchange Act of 1934. The forward-looking statements in this
release do not constitute guarantees of future performance.
Investors are cautioned that statements in this press release,
which are not strictly historical statements, involve a number of
factors that could cause actual results to differ materially,
including risks associated with the uncertainty in the IT spending
environment and a downturn in economic conditions generally,
revenue growth and recognition of revenue, products, their
development and distribution, product demand and pipeline,
competitive factors, the Company’s key strategic relationships,
acquisitions and related integration risks as well as other risks
detailed in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange
Commission. Citrix assumes no obligation to update any
forward-looking information contained in this press release or with
respect to the announcements described herein.
Citrix®, XenDesktop™, XenServer™ and Access Gateway™ are
trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. and/or one or more of its
subsidiaries, and may be registered in the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office and in other countries. All other trademarks are
property of their respective owners.
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