Download PDF
Kwantlen Polytechnic University leverages AppSense DesktopNow for VDI Implementation, improving the end user experience for staff, faculty and students
Technology Category
- Functional Applications - Remote Monitoring & Control Systems
Applicable Industries
- Education
Applicable Functions
- Facility Management
- Business Operation
Use Cases
- Remote Asset Management
- Remote Control
- Remote Collaboration
Services
- System Integration
- Software Design & Engineering Services
The Challenge
Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) faced rising costs and complexity in supporting an outdated IT environment. Users' personalization and policy settings were limited to a single, local machine, making it inconvenient for staff and students to travel between campuses and use different devices. Additionally, the university struggled with optimizing software licensing and managing applications that monopolized resources. KPU was committed to lowering desktop management and support costs while delivering a consistent end user experience with centralized user management. The organization spent three months reviewing solutions to assist with its virtualization initiative.
About The Customer
Established by the government of British Columbia in 1981, Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) has four campuses located in the Metro Vancouver region of British Columbia. KPU offers bachelor’s degrees, associate degrees, diplomas, certificates, and citations in more than 200 programs. More than 17,500 students annually attend KPU campuses in Surrey, Richmond, Langley, and Cloverdale. The university develops degree programs and other applied credentials to successfully meet the evolving needs of regional and global employment markets.
The Solution
KPU decided to implement a Citrix XenApp virtual desktop environment in conjunction with AppSense DesktopNow. This combination enabled the IT team to create a highly efficient, cost-effective environment that also improved the end user experience for faculty, staff, and students. The introduction of thin clients was a first for KPU employees, allowing for centralized user management across all devices and locations. AppSense DesktopNow empowered IT to centrally manage, set up, configure, lock down, and personalize any desktop regardless of device, platform, delivery mechanism, or location. The suite’s Application Manager provided privilege management features, while Performance Manager maintained server health by addressing application resource hogging. Environment Manager offered centralized user management, enterprise-wide user policy and personalization controls, profile rollback, and self-healing.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
Related Case Studies.
Case Study
IoT platform Enables Safety Solutions for U.S. School Districts
Designed to alert drivers when schoolchildren are present, especially in low-visibility conditions, school-zone flasher signals are typically updated manually at each school. The switching is based on the school calendar and manually changed when an unexpected early dismissal occurs, as in the case of a weather-event altering the normal schedule. The process to reprogram the flashers requires a significant effort by school district personnel to implement due to the large number of warning flashers installed across an entire school district.
Case Study
Revolutionizing Medical Training in India: GSL Smart Lab and the LAP Mentor
The GSL SMART Lab, a collective effort of the GSL College of Medicine and the GSL College of Nursing and Health Science, was facing a challenge in providing superior training to healthcare professionals. As clinical medicine was becoming more focused on patient safety and quality of care, the need for medical simulation to bridge the educational gap between the classroom and the clinical environment was becoming increasingly apparent. Dr. Sandeep Ganni, the director of the GSL SMART Lab, envisioned a world-class surgical and medical training center where physicians and healthcare professionals could learn skills through simulation training. He was looking for different simulators for different specialties to provide both basic and advanced simulation training. For laparoscopic surgery, he was interested in a high fidelity simulator that could provide basic surgical and suturing skills training for international accreditation as well as specific hands-on training in complex laparoscopic procedures for practicing physicians in India.
Case Study
Implementing Robotic Surgery Training Simulator for Enhanced Surgical Proficiency
Fundacio Puigvert, a leading European medical center specializing in Urology, Nephrology, and Andrology, faced a significant challenge in training its surgical residents. The institution recognized the need for a more standardized and comprehensive training curriculum, particularly in the area of robotic surgery. The challenge was underscored by two independent studies showing that less than 5% of residents in Italian and German residency programs could perform major or complex procedures by the end of their residency. The institution sought to establish a virtual reality simulation lab that would include endourological, laparoscopic, and robotic platforms. However, they needed a simulator that could replicate both the hardware and software of the robotic Da Vinci console used in the operating room, without being connected to the actual physical console. They also required a system that could provide both basic and advanced simulation training, and a metrics system to assess the proficiency of the trainees before they performed surgical procedures in the operating theater.
Case Study
Edinburgh Napier University streamlines long-distance learning with Cisco WebEX
• Geographically dispersed campus made in-person meetings costly and inconvenient.• Distance-learning programs in Malaysia, India, and China required dependable, user-friendly online tools to maximize interaction in collaborative workspaces.• Virtual learning environment required a separate sign-in process, resulting in a significant administrative burden for IT staff and limited adoption of collaboration technology.
Case Study
8x increased productivity with VKS
Before VKS, a teacher would spend a lot of time showing a group of 22 students how to build a set of stairs within a semester of 120 hours. Along with not leaving the teacher much time to provide one-on-one support for each student to properly learn carpentry, it also left a considerable amount of room for error. Key information would be misinterpreted or lost as the class was taught in the typical show-and-tell way.
Case Study
Scalable IoT Empowering GreenFlex's Sustainable Growth
GreenFlex, a company that supports sustainable development, decarbonization, and energy efficiency, faced several challenges in its quest to expand its business. The company needed to deploy a robust and sustainable IoT technology to support its growth. It was crucial for them to monitor and control devices at customer sites in a safe and reliable manner. They also needed to integrate devices across a range of communication protocols and gather and act on data to meet efficiency targets. GreenFlex had previously built IoT capabilities into its digital platform, GreenFlexIQ, to monitor and manage customer sites remotely. However, they soon realized that they needed a new platform to support their ambitions. They needed a platform that could scale to connect more devices for production management and make it easier for the operations team to manage devices in the field.