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Case study: d’Overbroeck’s College

“I came to my first Medhurst event in 2011 and as a result, I have used them ever since. The solutions they have are robust, effective and hit the mark on price. The breadth and depth of knowledge they have is just what I need to enhance my infrastructure with up to the minute technologies. I feel more like a family member than a customer.”

Richard Blunden, Senior IT Systems Manager, d’Overbroeck’s College

 

Customer Profile

d’Overbroeck’s College is a co-educational independent school in Oxford, for pupils aged 11–18. The College has 4 disparate sites across North Oxford. The Good Schools Guide describes d’Overbroeck’s College as a place of energy and laughter, of single-minded determination among pupils to do the best they can. In the summer of 2012, d’Overbroeck’s installed the Medhurst’s Dashboard to enable the school to deliver its software applications flexibly and securely to a large range of desktop and mobile devices, used by the college staff.

Business Needs

d’Overbroeck’s College was using a mixture of terminal services and VPNs to gain access to the software applications on the college’s network. However, the connections were slow across the different college campuses and had to be configured for each member of staff. The college also wanted to provide its staff with remote and flexible access to the network using their preferred devices.

The staff also wanted to be able to use the wireless capabilities across the school grounds more effectively, taking registers on the move and providing a more interesting multimedia environment for pupils working outside in sports activities or on field trips.

Solution

The college chose to work with education ICT specialist Medhurst following attendance at an education seminar at Microsoft’s headquarters and was impressed with the ease of use and functionality of the Medhurst Dashboard private cloud solution. In the spring of 2012, Medhurst installed a Hewlett Packard wireless solution to provide full wireless access across the college sites via twenty new wireless access points, followed in the summer by the Medhurst Dashboard cloud solution.

All of the college’s standard software applications were added to the Dashboard including WCBS’ PASS school management system, Microsoft Office and selected academic packages. With a simple set up, the college administrators can determine what applications staff can use, eliminating the need for management of multiple end-point devices with no installation, configuration, management, updating or patching needed.

Results

d’Overbroeck’s College’s academic and back office staff can now access the college’s network from their own preferred devices, in school or remotely, via a fast, secure connection over the web. The wireless environment across all the sites now means that staff can work anywhere in the college and use the college’s ICT resources in a much more flexible way to support both the back office functions and curriculum.

Richard Blunden, Senior IT Systems Manager, d’Overbroeck’s College explains,

“The Medhurst Dashboard cloud solution is ideal for our needs. It offers us the fast, flexible and yet secure access we need to the college’s ICT resources at anytime and from any chosen device. It’s simple to use, simple to manage and we can add, remove and update software applications in minutes to provide all college staff and pupils with the latest technology applications.”