8. Green IT
High concentrations of conventional laptops would have
pumped out too much heat for the natural air cooling system
to deal with. A green IT solution cloud clients, consumes a
fraction of the electricity compared to a standard PC and
hardly generates any heat. In fact each Dell Wyse cloud
client computer uses approximately 10% or less of the power
required by a laptop and generates less heat than the person
using it. The cloud clients must be easy to manage remotely
and deliver a user experience equivalent, if not better than
using a laptop. VDI solution with cloud clients fits this bill
perfectly. There also is added security because the cloud
clients are useless unless connected to the central servers,
which is important in the open learning spaces. Citrix
software is used to publish desktop applications to each
cloud client terminal. All of the standard Microsoft
applications plus some specialist statistical software are
made available via a user’s personal login detail, which also
provides access to personal data. The same software supports
desktop anywhere, a service that allows staff and students to
access their personal applications and data offsite.
The design and cost efficiencies of the Dell Wyse solution
will enable the school project to flood numerous cloud
clients and create new areas for accessible learning. The
public areas rely on environmentally friendly air cooling
rather than traditional air conditioning. The much lower heat
output of the cloud clients therefore was an essential part of
this work which had to take into account the thermal
discharge of both people and laptops. The datacenters which
host the digital content is professionally managed and
observes principles of green IT.