Scalar Case Study: Strong Project Management Helps McMaster University Successfully Deliver VDI

Strong Project Management Helps McMaster University Successfully Deliver VDI

CASE STUDY

McMaster University

Industry: Education

Stats: 22,367 full-time undergraduates

3,408 full-time graduates

Location: Hamilton, Canada

Website: mcmaster.ca

Objectives

• Refresh dated hardware and software in the university’s 7 student labs

• Reduce support costs with a virtualized desktop environment

• Completion of the VDI installation in a 3 month timeframe

Background

For the professors and students that rely on the computing labs at McMaster

University, life just got a bit easier. After summer break, returning faculty

and students received a pleasant surprise when they logged into the newly

refreshed lab environment. They were greeted with cutting-edge technology,

and a vastly improved user experience.

In the months prior, the IT team was hard at work putting together the plan

that would transform the student labs. McMaster University was looking

to convert their labs from a physically constrained desktop system to a

virtualized environment where the data is centralized on a server and no

longer tied to a physical asset. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) has been

steadily gaining momentum with education institutions and was part of the

McMaster University Technology Services (UTS) department’s overall plan to

reduce support costs and achieve economies of scale.

“With both the hardware and software coming up to end of life, we were

looking to invest in a technology for the future, which would give us flexibility

to grow as demands change,” said John Kearney, CIO, McMaster University.

Challenge: Aggressive Timelines

The biggest challenge by far was the aggressive timelines the project team

faced. The VDI implementation project formally kicked off in May 2014 with

an inflexible completion date by the end of August when labs needed to be

ready for the new school year. “We were under very tight timelines - during

the academic year, the labs are in constant use so we had a finite time during

the summer months to get all the old gear out and bring in the new solution,”

said Kearney. “Not only were we installing VDI, we were also upgrading from

Microsoft Windows XP to Windows 7 and from Office 2003 to Office 2010. On

top of this, we were upgrading 96 different application suites for the labs,”

said Brandon Cleland, Systems Integration Specialist, McMaster University.

Non-Technical Stakeholder Participation

A great deal of planning went into ensuring the project was a success.

A steering committee that encompassed stakeholder participation from

across the McMaster community was put in place. While this was clearly

an IT-led project, Kearney and his team worked diligently to recruit input

from all groups affected by the new technology, including representation

from the Registrar’s Office (the group responsible for booking the labs on

S c a l a r D e c i s i o n s I n c .

CASE STUDY: MCMASTER UNIVERSITY

Solution

• VDI Assessment: Liquidware Labs Stratusphere Fit

• Profile Management: Liquidware Labs Profile Unity

• Zero Client: Dell Wyse

• Software Platform: VMware Horizon View

• Storage Platform: Nimble Storage

• Servers: Cisco Systems Unified Computing System (UCS) Servers

• Agentless AntiVirus: Trend Micro

• Management Console: Unidesk

behalf of the faculty), members from faculty that use the labs in their

teaching, as well as participation from the McMaster Students Union. Each

person on the steering committee represented a faculty or department and

was responsible for taking the information back to their own groups and

collecting feedback, creating a trickle down effect. “One contributor to

success was that we had non-technical stakeholders included from start to

end,” said Kearney. “Our users defined their requirements and Scalar worked

with us to architect the best technology solution.”

Vendor and Client Project Management Team Alignment

After Scalar was awarded the VDI project, the Scalar project manager drafted

an implementation schedule and worked with the McMaster project managers

to ensure the plan aligned with the university’s tasks. “The coordination

between the two sides was critical - it was important to not only build out the

plan from Scalar’s perspective, but to gain an understanding of McMaster’s

commitments to their community of stakeholders,” said Gary Luk, IT Project

Manager, Scalar Decisions. “McMaster had a communications plan and

additional steps as part of their operationalization process – all of this was

integrated into a master schedule.”

Weekly meetings, a shared online collaboration tool, as well as a dedicated

physical workspace where the technical implementation team could work

together were all contributors to success. The workspace – a student lab that

wasn’t in use - provided a direct connection into the lab environment and

a place where they could conduct

testing and share work in progress.

“Everyone knew we were working on

incredibly tight timelines and there

wasn’t any extra time for unforeseen

issues. Scalar’s response to any

problems was quick and effective.

If we had any issues, they worked

hard to get us through them,” said

Laura McBride, Project Coordinator,

McMaster University.

VDI Implementation Scores Points with Students and Technical Staff

Ease of management has been touted as the prime benefit for the technical

staff responsible for the labs. “With the new solution, we have one



“Scalar’s response to

any problems was quick

and effective. If we

had any issues, they

worked hard to get us

through them.”

Results

• Improved ease of management

• Login time reduced from 4 ½ - 5 minutes down to 1 ½ minutes

• Improved student and faculty user experience

management console where we

can package application layers

and OS updates and push them

out,” said Cleland. The new virtual

desktop system also provides a test

environment where everything can

be physically tested before being

pushed to production. “Our labs

are open from 8:30 am to 11:30

pm which made it difficult to push

out updates in the old world. If

we wanted to reimage or reinstall,

we had to wait until after hours

to access the desktops.” Desktop

provisioning, application layering and

image management now takes place

at the server level, vastly improving

daily operations.

The benefits don’t stop at the technical staff. Students and faculty have

reported positive feedback, recounting a much quicker response time. “Our

users report that performance is amazing - with 96 different application suites

in the labs, the login time in the old environment took 4 ½ to 5 minutes. It

is now cut down to about 1 ½ minutes,” said Cleland. Old computers have

been replaced with larger 22-inch monitors with Windows 7 and Office 2010,

meaning the university’s software applications can now run current Windows 7

compatible versions.

Future Phases

McMaster considered the student computer labs a pilot project for VDI. The 300

seats in total served as a testing ground for the viability of virtualized desktops

across the university campus. “The response has been so positive that we now

anticipate rolling out VDI into the administrative areas of the university,” said

Kearney. “This has huge potential for economies of scale and reduced labour

costs. We see this as a major stepping stone to being able to support our BYOD

(bring your own device) strategy down the road.”

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“Our users report that

performance is amazing

- with 96 different

application suites in

the labs, the login time

in the old environment

took 4 ½ to 5 minutes.

It is now cut down to

about 1 ½ minutes.”