Northumbria University sets New Standard for Sustainable IT with Wyse Thin Computing
Widespread deployment of energy efficient thin client computers complement campus green building design features
London, United Kingdom - 30 June 2009 – Wyse Technology, the global leader in thin computing, today announced how a major UK university is benefiting from a new campus that takes advantage of the latest sustainable IT features. Northumbria University’s high quality Newcastle City Centre campus facilities for students are already a major success. With the North East Festival of Architecture (NEFA) taking place from June 13-28 2009, focusing on green initiatives to improve facilities is an increasingly important theme.
The campus buildings provide a significantly improved learning environment and more accessible IT provided by hundreds of Wyse thin client computers. Northumbria University has always had a strong reputation for environmental innovation and with over 30,000 students the university aims to be one of the world’s leading learning and teaching universities while maintaining its green image.
In addition to the deployment of Wyse thin clients, the entire south facing Facade of the existing Northumberland building is covered with solar panels and the city centre campus is set up to harvest rain water for use in the building. The cooling system used functions by blowing air over cold water.
In planning the new building, the University had to find a way to reconcile the environmental impact of heavy IT usage with the buildings’ inherent sustainability including strict limits on the use of air conditioning in public areas. A high concentration of conventional PCs would have pumped out too much heat for the natural air cooling system to deal with but environmental features alone could not answer Northumbria’s requirements. The thin clients had to be easy to manage remotely and deliver a user experience equivalent, if not better than using a PC.
Northumbria specified Wyse V50 thin client computers that run the Linux operating system. Choosing a very simple configuration made the units much easier to support. There also is added security because the thin clients are useless unless connected to the central servers, making theft pointless. Citrix software is used to publish desktop applications to each thin client terminal and all of the standard Microsoft applications plus some specialist statistical software are made available via a user’s personal login. The same software supports desktop ANYWHERE, a service that allows staff and students to access their personal applications and data offsite.
The use of the Wyse Device Manager software centralises management of every thin client. It regularly checks how the unit is working, alerting the university team to any potentially faulty units. The simple specification means any thin client can be swapped out with minimum fuss. A replacement is plugged in and running within a few minutes.
Joe Evans, Technical Services Manager, Northumbria University stated, “A green IT solution came to mind quite easily because the university was already a user of thin computers. These consume a fraction of the electricity compared to a standard PC and generate hardly any heat. In fact each Wyse thin client computer uses a tenth of the power used by a PC and generates less heat than the person using it!”
David Angwin, Director of Marketing, Wyse, commented, “UK universities are showing government and the private sector what can be achieved with exciting new green initiatives to improve both their facilities and the environment for their students and the wider community. Using Wyse thin client computing enabled the University to be imaginative in how they provided information technology resources throughout the new building. The University wanted to ensure students and staff always had access to personal computing. The design of the Wyse thin computers meant Northumbria University could flood the public areas with over 450 terminals and create new areas for accessible learning.”
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