Logicalis has completed the rollout of a 400-seat VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) at Loughborough University, to support the University’s long-term capability demands of its research, teaching and enterprise divisions.  Already, the solution has enabled the University to introduce a BYOD initiative for academic staff and slash IT maintenance hours.

The VMware licences were negotiated and secured by Logicalis as part of its consultative partnership with Loughborough University, to complement the University’s IT strategy to improve flexibility, capacity and efficiency within the organization. The service was also expected to reduce the overhead of desktop maintenance.

Dr Phil Richards, Director of IT at Loughborough University, comments, “Initially, we chose to deploy VDI to our corporate users – those that operate the business of university life, for instance our finance and HR departments. It was easier for us to determine the requirements of this group, and generally their needs tended to be less technically demanding.

“We very quickly realised the benefits we had expected to see, namely; total cost of ownership and efficiency within the IT team, modest carbon savings, and the provision of an alternative IT service for corporate users.”

In terms of IT team efficiency, Richards points to a significant saving in maintenance: “Despite it being a small deployment, we’re saving the equivalent, in man-hours, of 1-2 IT staff. This frees my team to focus on more productive duties.”

Richards has since extended VDI access to the University’s academic and research staff, as part of a BYOD initiative. He concludes:

“As a world class University, our lecturing and research teams often contribute to conferences and working groups around the world.  Providing VDI access to the University’s administrative apps from their personal mobile devices is enabling them to log expenses, access shared teaching resources with students, and so on.  With respect, this is invaluable to maintaining the University’s reputation as a leading education establishment. As always, utilising Logicalis’ influence and consultancy is enabling the University to exploit IT initiatives that have a big business impact.”