Education

Approach

ICT : a major enabler of Education and Research

Information and Communication Technology will remain a major consideration when delivering high quality education services throughout the sector, from Primary schools to Universities.

Expectations of ICT in Education :

Access to ICT must be continuous to enable undisruptive education
Students and teachers need access to information and ICT resources inside and outside of the classroom
Teachers are looking for solutions able to adapt to their pedagogical needs
IT Managers and School Directors want robust, easy to manage and to support solutions, with improved access control and no malware or viruses
Education establishments often need access to trusted ICT partners who can advise, deliver and support solutions
Many institutions are under increasing pressure to reduce carbon emissions and become more energy efficient

NEC has a long history of providing innovative products and solutions into educational establishments and has developed a large range of solutions, to tackle the challenges of Education and Research.

NEC Offer

Adapted solutions for Education and Research

Free-access PCs in University

Granting students free access to PCs raises several issues and concerns :

Management and security of the device
Management and security of the access to the school/university network
The initial investment and ongoing support costs

To address these concerns, NEC proposes different solutions of Desktop Virtualization, with multiple benefits :

Enhanced security : Achieved by the centralisation of the data
Simple management of the classroom : Achieved by the standardisation of user devices
TCO Reduction : Achieved by the significant decrease in energy consumption (5 times less than a traditional PC), through management costs reduction and the longer life of a Thin Client, compared to a PC.

Calculation Power and High Availability for Research

The Dynamic DataCenter

In the Research sector, performance, precision and security are mandatory.

The NEC solutions allow you to combine calculation power and scalability, while optimising space and energy consumption. At NEC, we think that IT must become dynamic to reduce the budgets dedicated to simple infrastructure maintenance and go further to assist IT management and deliver a high quality IT service. NEC are world leaders in developing new technologies that are able to scale and adapt to make IT more efficient.

The NEC Dynamic DataCenter is designed to meet multiple needs including :

More calculation power for Research and Development
Reduce the energy consumption, carbon emissions and costs associated with DataCentres
Increasing the density of servers in a rack and therefore reduce the physical space required within DataCentres
Reduce the floor loading
Increase resilience and availabilty
Improve and enhance the management tools for managing physical and virtual servers, applications and fluctuations in demand
Easy access to the lessons, e-learning, notes, information on school/university life from anywhere, at any time…

Business Continuity

NEC are world leaders in prviding solutions to protect critical applications and sensitive data within the datacenter, where they are easier to control and monitor.
Depending on the critical nature of your application or data, NEC proposes solutions adapted to your priorities, from simple storage to high availability solutions through our innovative Fault Tolerant servers (99.999% availability) and enterprise level clustering solutions.

Customer Case

A complete portfollio well adapted for Education

Tower Hamlets City Learning Center (Londres, United-Kingdom)

Desktop Virtualization

BACKGROUND:

Located in Whitechapel, London, The Tower Hamlets City Learning Centre has become pivotal to enhancing social mobility through education within the local community and is widely regarded as a centre for inspiration and innovation. Working in conjunction with local schools and other partners to run workshops, projects and training sessions, the Centre’s eLearning Team provides a range of resources to enable staff and students to access emerging and cutting edge technologies, which in turn provide opportunities for a range of individuals and organisations.

CHALLENGE:
To enhance the equipment of the Tower Hamlets City Learning Centre by replacing the previous system and increasing the number of work stations dedicated to teachers and students.

SOLUTION:
NEC worked closely with the eLearning Team to tailor a solution for the City Learning Centre based upon the revolutionary NEC Virtual PC Center incorporating thin client devices and servers. This solution encompassed all of the elements required by the City Learning Centre to enhance and develop its existing provision and meet the evolving needs of its users and partners. Both pupils and staff use a range of technologies to enhance and facilitate both learning and teaching

MULTIPLE BENEFITS:
By providing a dynamic, flexible solution utilizing advanced thin client technology, the City Learning Centre was able to enhance many areas including:

Security
Cost
Performance
Manageability
Energy efficiency

For the students

Enables authentic user mobility, as each user has access to their own work environment wherever they are
Unprecedented multimedia quality
Comfort of use, simple design, ultra compact, silent and fast to start with any Operating System

For the IT team of the CLC

Reduction in costs: The thin client architecture has a longer lifespan and a much lower power consumption. Each thin client consumes less than 13W, eight to ten times less than a PC.
Eco-friendly solution: The lower heat emissions means there’s less need for air conditioning if they are grouped together in an IT suite.

This technology makes management of work stations easier, reduces administration costs and guarantees enterprise data protection. Over three to four years, total cost of ownership of the Virtual PC Center for the City Learning Centre will be less than the total cost of a traditional PC Server environment by 50%.

Ministry of Education, Province of San Juan (Argentina)

Secure Cloud Solution

BACKGROUND:
The Ministry of Education in San Juan, Argentina, is a government agency responsible for creating and executing policies for education excellence. The Ministry designs equitable and innovative educational programs for pre-school, primary, secondary and higher education levels. Their aim is to ensure a quality education system that contributes to the integral training of people and development of the province by formulating and implementing policies, standards and sectoral regulation.

CHALLENGE:

Inefficient information management system
Sensitive data not secured sufficiently
Administrators’ decision-making ability impeded
Outdated processes
Equipment not standardized

SOLUTION:
In response to the Ministry of Education’s unique needs, NEC delivered a secure cloud solution utilizing its desktop virtualization solution (Virtual PC Center: VPCC) and IP telephony– all based securely in the data center. As the first virtualization project for the Ministry, there were natural concerns about such a large-scale integration project and new software.
This secure cloud solution, customized for the Ministry of Education, delivers the security and cost-savings of DaaS (Desktop as a Service), SaaS (Software as a Service) and PaaS (Platform as a Service) methodologies through the data center.

BENEFITS:

Streamlined processes
Faster response time
Reduced maintenance costs
Effective management tools
Better transparency of administration
Easy communication between the offices and schools
Enhanced security
Improved services to community

Education Environment

NEC Virtual PC Center

FlexNDV

Datacenter Management