Homewood SUSE desktop migration cuts costs

The library of a Guelph, Ont.-based mental health and addiction treatment centre has solved its IT budget constraints by replacing its Windows operating system with multiple workstations that run on a single Linux PC – effectively avoiding the cost of deploying energy and space-consumptive single-user desktops.

Homewood Health Care, with the help of Edmonton, Alta.-based Novell partner Omni Technology Solutions Inc., deployed Desktop Multiplier for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktops (SLED) powered by Userful, the Calgary, Alta.-based provider of the technology.

Homewood was looking to use recently obtained funding to replace the old Windows NT 4 systems with eight Windows XP workstations, but quickly realized that hardware, operating system and licence costs overshot its budget of $11,000.

The Desktop Multiplier for SLED was ideal given the total tab of $6,000 for two computers, including licences, that would run eight workstations, said Chris Giles, network analyst of information services at Homewood.

"[Librarian staff] wanted us to save money, magically cut $4,000 or $5,000 out of the bill, and the only way to do that was this solution."

Despite the shift to a new technology platform, staff and patients have easily adapted, and in fact, have experienced better system performance, said Giles. Running demos and launching an initial pilot phase certainly eased the transition, as well.

Giles, who about a couple of times a week made IT support calls to the library to fix operating system issues, observed "considerably less visits" that now centre around "valid questions about using resources they have access to. That's a nice change."

Besides cost savings, running multiple workstations from one system has freed up space in the library, said Giles.

The easy transition to the new setup is due, in part, to the fact that multiple workstations running on one system is transparent to the user, said Trevor Poapst, director of global marketing & channel strategy at Omni. "In most cases, users don't even realize that they're sharing a single PC."

Running pilots to assess usability and to ensure requirements are being met are a great way to ease the initial apprehension that may exist prior to shifting to a new operating system, said Poapst.