[MUSIC PLAYING] Drexel University was established in 1891. And although there are no computers back then, we're certainly making up for it now.
I oversee the IT operations within the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design. Our service catalog includes service and support for traditional software and hardware needs, but as well as more unique needs for a college. We provide service for laser cutters, rapid prototypers, 3D knitting machines, and motion capture studios. We have 35 computer labs. Macs, PCs, and Linux. In total, it's over 1,000 operating systems.
The KACE Systems management Appliance was the right choice for us because it addressed our pain points, specifically application deployment and patching. We're also having to deal with a multi-platform environment, so we needed something that worked across the board and that KACE Appliance. was the only thing that did that. From our perspective, an appliance is really critical. We need something that drops into our environment and instantly gives us access to information that we need about the devices connected to our network.
Students bring to the network any device they have. It can be a smartphone, to a watch, to a tablet. By using the KACE appliance, it allows us to inventory these objects and get a sense of what devices are coming on our network, and what sort of security concerns we may have with those devices present.
I think what KACE has allowed us to accomplish is the ability to install plug-ins and updates quickly. Need a plug-in that need to be installed in a piece of software, I was able to have it done in a few hours as opposed to a few days. So when professor went into his class to teach that night, we saw that all his students were able to use his software. He sent me an email and said, wow, that's fast.
When you share things like memory, as well as video software is up to date is very important to those in the media college. With the tools that KACE provides, we're able to do hands off patching to the labs that we manage here. We're able to allow students to continue to use those programs while we do the patching and updating. Working in a university, there's many different issues that arise. Each day we accept tickets through the KACE system. We take care of any issues that faculty, staff, and students run into throughout the day.
One of the work flows that we've built into our KACE appliance happens in our service desk. We strongly believe in the importance of communication.
One way that we improve that with KACE is it automatically e-mails users to let them know where we are with a system build; so if it's ordered, if it's on site, and where it's at in customization and deployment.
From a business perspective, using the KACE appliance has allowed us to eliminate overtime. During our breaks we usually run updates on all the computers. There's a lot of late nights. And what KACE has allowed us to do was to end those long nights, and the extra hours.
Over time what we found was the value of the KACE appliance was like having two additional employees on staff.
KACE allows us to understand what's in our labs, and how best to deploy new software, and new patches.
KACE does at all. It's reporting, its inventory, its service desk, its installation, its even imaging. Its the tool chest, not just one tool.
It allows us to provide the mechanical advantage that we need to help our students learn, and our teachers teach.
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