Education British Columbia School District 67

Technology Category

Functional Applications - Remote Monitoring & Control Systems
Functional Applications - Enterprise Asset Management Systems (EAM)

Applicable Industries

Education

Applicable Functions

Facility Management
Business Operation

Use Cases

Remote Asset Management
Remote Control
Security Claims Evaluation

Services

System Integration
Software Design & Engineering Services

The Challenge

BC School District 67 faced several challenges in maintaining a secure and productive IT environment. The district needed to securely lock down the environment without reducing user capability and productivity or increasing overall IT support costs. Resource-intensive applications consumed excessive CPU and reduced performance. Additionally, the district had to manage security threats from both inside and outside the firewall, as tech-savvy students often ran unauthorized applications, installed keyloggers, and shared computers, exposing sensitive information. The IT department also struggled with managing policies and personalization across Citrix thin clients, desktops, and laptops separately, which was time-consuming and inefficient. Furthermore, the district wanted to optimize its thin-client servers by increasing user load without impacting the quality of service, as several critical applications consumed 100% CPU, resulting in significant performance hits and increased support calls.

About The Customer

British Columbia School District 67 (Okanagan Skaha) is a technology pioneer and the province’s only district with a centralized fiber optic network, which it shares with the City of Penticon. The IT department services 7,500 students and 800 staff across three high schools, four middle schools, and ten elementary schools. The district supports 2,000 desktops, 14 Citrix Servers, and 300 laptops. Ensuring security, stability, and performance in such a diverse environment, particularly when so many of its users are tech-savvy students, proved to be a tremendous challenge. The district needed to balance security with end-user productivity, manage policies centrally, and optimize resource utilization to support more users per server.

The Solution

BC School District 67 turned to AppSense solutions to address their challenges. They deployed AppSense Application Manager and AppSense Performance Manager components to proactively secure the environment and improve system performance. Later, they implemented AppSense Environment Manager across all desktops to provide suitable lock-down functionality without compromising user capability. AppSense’s ability to work across all client delivery mechanisms, including Citrix servers, desktops, and laptops, provided centralized management and scalability. The district used AppSense Performance Manager to increase user load per server and control CPU usage by processor-intensive applications, resulting in a more stable and well-performing Citrix build. AppSense also enabled IT to restrict applications on USB drives, allowing users to store data on thumb drives while preventing the execution of malicious code. The self-authorization capabilities of AppSense allowed teachers to run applications they needed without waiting for IT approval, enhancing productivity while maintaining security.

Operational Impact

Prevented all unauthorized applications, achieving high levels of security while improving end-user productivity.
Decreased client re-imaging to once a year, reducing the time and effort required for maintenance.
Secured and simplified applications through lock-down capabilities, centralizing security management for terminal servers, desktops, and laptops.

Quantitative Benefit

BC School District 67 uses AppSense across Citrix, desktops, and notebooks for 8,000 users.
The IT department services 7,500 students and 800 staff across three high schools, four middle schools, and ten elementary schools.
The district supports 2,000 desktops, 14 Citrix Servers, and 300 laptops.