DTP helps Alton College virtualise its server infrastructure

Investing in IT to save

The solution is comprehensive for the College’s requirements right now but the team was sure to design and deploy a very scalable solution for the future. Andy comments, “The budget we had for the project was small, less than a suite of Apple iMacs for example. However the HP solution had scalability which we liked. This wasn’t a project that could be put off due to the equipment which had reached the end of its life so we had to do it, and we had to do it for the budget we had available.”

The College has projected savings amounting to over £16,000 per year on energy savings, through reduced air conditioning usage and reduced power consumption of client devices, and whilst not part of the project the central management allowed by the virtualisation infrastructure does enable the team to automate power-off which takes place each evening. These savings go a long way to enhancing the College’s green credentials.

Professional HP partner

Alton College had originally been introduced to DTP by HP for their previous server virtualisation experience in the education sector however in the end it was DTP’s professional and comprehensive tender response which won it the project. Andy says, “It was reassuring to see the detail in the response and the clear effort that had been put into the tender, and their subsequent work backed up the strong tender submission.”

DTP is a highly accredited HP server, storage and networking partner and works with customers across public sector organisations and UK businesses. Its professional and systematic approach to the design and deployment of this project is what really impressed Alton College. Andy says, “The tools the team have at their disposal is enough to deal with any situation that arises. We needed a specifically vendor accredited support engineer on site and they arrived within 30 minutes! Our experience of other similar resellers has been that the Company portrays professionalism but they may not follow through with knowledgeable staff; this was not the case with DTP. We were asked early on in the project how much we wanted to input and we were then given as much support as we wanted. Simple milestone meetings which kept everyone informed were refreshing to see, and it was clear to see the DTP team were PRINCE2 qualified, we could see it in action.” 

Highly recommended for the future

The College has grand plans for the future and is already considering pushing a large proportion 

Andy comments, “As we continue to evolve the IT infrastructure of our College we will continue to work with partners like DTP, partners that will look at our infrastructure with fresh eyes to ensure best practice rather than just doing the job that is asked of them. I would recommend DTP in a heartbeat.”  The College has grand plans for the future and is already considering pushing a large proportion of its services to the cloud as part of its five year plan and whilst it may not yet be ready for such a move it is making great strides. It is currently trialling a deployment of sixty netbooks to students, for them to trial cloud based applications.