Columbia County government deploys virtual desktops for greater security and lower costs

Columbia County, incorporated in 1790, is located on the Savannah River in northeast Georgia. As one of the fastest-growing counties in the region, it saw population growth of 39 percent between 2000 and 2010.

The county is predominantly residential, and the household income is the third-highest of Georgia's 159 counties. The largest cities in this 290-square-mile area are Evans and Martinez.

The Challenge

Sean McArdle, IT Manager reporting to the County Administrator's Office, heads the county's IT infrastructure and services group. In 2010 he was facing a number of challenges, including slow server performance, high maintenance costs and users clamoring for a more modern user interface. His goal was to optimize resources, consolidate and virtualize the servers, and centralize system management. He also wanted to increase the overall system performance, better manage applications, increase control over the desktops and data, and achieve a lower total cost of ownership (TCO).

He turned to Mainline Information Systems^®, an IBM Premier Business Partner that in the past had supported the county's IBM infrastructure, to provide recommendations for replacing its legacy systems. The Mainline Account Executive put together a team with expertise in VMware, virtualization and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). They provided a comprehensive assessment of Columbia County's current requirements and future plans and developed a customized road map that would use existing or upgraded VMware products to consolidate and virtualize the entire system.

The Solution

The solution components included Mainline's Virtual Desktop Infrastructure using Wyse clients, IBM BladeCenter H, IBM Power HS22 blades, IBM JS12 blade, and Mainline Professional Services, which consisted of the design and implementation of 200 VDI Wyse client desktops. With VDI, organizations host individual desktops inside virtual machines running in their data center on more reliable and fault-tolerant industry-standard servers. Users access these desktops remotely from a thin client using remote desktop protocol (RDP).

IBM BladeCenter® H Chassis

The BladeCenter chassis provides industry-leading performance, innovative architecture and a solid foundation for virtualization.

IBM HS22 Blade Servers

Each IBM BladeCenter H houses 14 thin modular server blades, each an independent server containing processors, memory and network controllers with support for other I/O devices, as needed. The BladeCenter allows more power in less rack space while reducing power consumption by as much as 35 percent. The HS servers provide high performance, flexibility, simplicity and centralized management from a single console, and virtualize in minutes.

IBM JS12 Blade

The IBM JS12 was selected to move the iSeries to the blade environment in order to provide a dedicated rack for SAN and iSeries tape drives, which allowed the tax and public works departments to keep legacy applications for their respective records. This made the transition to the new blade environment easier for users because it gave them greater choice and flexibility.

Wyse Thin Clients

The Wyse Thin Client was selected because it leverages an ultra-thin operating system that boots in seconds and simplifies administration. It offers the utmost security and protection from viruses and malicious software because the operating system does not have a publicly exposed Application Program Interface (API ) that can be exploited by hackers. Also, since the Wyse Thin OS connects to the virtual desktop in the data center for all data and applications, the device stores no data, further protecting sensitive information. It also has low power consumption and low heat output compared to PCs.

Mainline Professional Services

As the first VMware National Premier Partner, Mainline partners with this industry leader in virtualization software to deliver an integrated virtualization solution. Mainline designed and configured the solution; installed the server and storage hardware; virtualized the server, storage and desktops; and tested the system.

The Result

"With VDI, Columbia County can install and run applications on a local VM server and manage them from the county's data center, providing better control over our data and giving us desktops that can be upgraded, patched and deployed from a central location," McArdle explained. "This translates to easier and centralized management, lower costs, and better security."

"We were impressed with the solution and cost savings involved," McArdle said. "Now that Mainline has rolled out the 200 VDIs successfully, we are expanding from there. We have already completed a pilot to replace the 50 public access computers in the county library and plan to eventually use VDI throughout the county.

"Mainline was very diligent in looking for ways to leverage the technology Columbia County already has, and has been a fantastic partner for us," McArdle continued. "As top-notch professionals, they have always done the right thing by us, even if it meant going to other vendors for components of the solution." He concluded, "I would recommend Mainline to any company interested in lowering their TCO while getting state-of-the-art technology."

For more information about this solution, call your Mainline account representative or call Mainline directly at 866.490.MAIN(6246) or complete our contact us form.