Monday 8 November 2010

Medhurst announces details of its joint seminar with Microsoft for schools and colleges - 16th February 2011

Learn about the latest Microsoft Applications for education at the Microsoft Campus.

Wednesday 16th February 2011, Microsoft Campus, Thames Valley Park, Reading, RG6 1WG - February 2011

Keeping up-to-date with advances in technology is time consuming, as is finding time to teach staff about new software. Medhurst aim to relieve some of this stress by running sessions focused on the latest technology solutions that can save you time and money.

Held at Microsoft's Head Office in Reading, our education seminar will focus on Hyper-V Server 2008 R2, a stand-alone product that provides a reliable and optimised virtualisation solution, enabling organisations to improve server utilisation and reduce costs. The seminar will also offer a chance to learn about the new features and benefits of the recently launched Windows 7 and Office 2010.

Through open discussions, hands-on learning and the possibility to network and seek advice from industry professionals, the seminar will act as a useful introduction to any schools and colleges interested in what these new solutions can offer.

For further information, please contact the Medhurst Education team on 01489 563000.






Medhurst Helps School Save £23,000 With Innovative Virtualised Environment


Low running costs, fewer server purchases, faster backup and recovery and simplified maintenance and administration will save Neville Lovett Community School a minimum of £23,000 over three years. At Medhurst, we believe that it is vital to provide schools with high-quality equipment that will do the job required whilst keeping students’ IT skills in this area up-to-date. Just as businesses work to tight budgets, so do schools. By running a system with reduced space and reduced downtime, schools can make huge cost savings in both power and management, whilst providing more resilient in day-to-day operations.

In 2009, the school network was migrated to Windows Server 2008 R2, to take advantage of Hyper-V virtualisation technology. After two weeks of using Hyper-V technology, IT Manager Richard Markey not only saw that the system was more cost-effective for the school than VMware but it also provided tools for managing the Neville Lovett network more efficiently.

With Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007, Neville Lovett can manage all servers from a single monitor, which means we can prevent many of the problems that cause user downtime. For example, the system can back up and restore a student’s work in around 15 minutes. In addition, Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 provides employees with the tools to deploy updates remotely, and configure machines to comply with the school’s policies, improving network security and increasing performance and availability.

Wednesday 3 November 2010

Medhurst saves Portsmouth Grammar School £21,000

Portsmouth Grammar School relies heavily on Information Communications Technology (ICT) to enhance learning, improve the quality of teaching and ensure reliable disaster recovery and data protection.

Medhurst has designed, implemented and migrated its existing physical server estate to VMware’s vSphere platform. As a result, the school has seen a number of significant benefits, including hardware consolidation, reduction in power and cooling needs, centralised administration and ease of server provision and innovative disaster recovery.

On top of this, an estimated 3-year projection suggests the school will make savings of over £21,000 with the system installed by Medhurst.

In our experience, the IT infrastructure needs of schools are comparable to many medium sized commercial businesses. The benefits that businesses enjoy through virtualisation also keenly fit the school ICT environment. Portsmouth Grammar, like many other local schools, has been able to dramatically reduce its IT investment and costs with VMware vSphere, consolidating its resource pools, and being able to deliver resources and applications when and where they’re needed.