November 09

Waltham Forest College, a major provider of lifelong learning to over 10,000 students (under 19 and adults) in North East London, is reducing its energy bills and carbon footprint following the installation of LG’s revolutionary Network Monitor ICT solution. The College was introduced to the system through Connecting Minds (an LG Network Monitor Approved Partner).

The installation of 55 network monitors transformed the college’s two main ICT centres reducing the number of desktop PC in use by a staggering 87% while retaining the same number of workstations available to students. Despite the old buildings and outdated electrical cabling, the new LG solution was installed and fully operational within just 2 days.

LG Network Monitor enables up to 10 monitors to be connected to one host PC, each running independent sessions, while an integrated USB hub allows students to work using USB memory sticks at each Network Monitor, ensuring there is a professional transparent approach to all students’ work which doesn’t overload the system.

As a result of installing Network Monitors, Waltham Forest College now only needs to maintain, support and potentially upgrade 7 host PCs as opposed to the previous 55 workstations, thereby not only reducing the ongoing support costs but also reducing future landfill.

Martin Moore, Director of Systems & Planning, believes that the Network Monitor ICT Solution will considerably contribute to the College meeting its objectives of enhanced access to ICT for its students while reducing its carbon footprint.

Furthermore, the IT Support team, which is currently responsible for maintaining up to 1500 working computers each day, expects to see calls to the Helpdesk decline by around 70%, allowing the team to be more proactive around the college and to put their skills to better use than just constantly “fire fighting” PC problems.

To summarise, Martin Moore said:
“Many colleges all over the country face the same problems as us – namely the need to update computing and IT facilities on the tightest of budgets and with minimal disruption. At the same time we need to take into consideration the need to reduce the impact we have on the environment as well as allow for easy and cost effective future upgrades. In time, the reduced energy consumption levels will mean that the College will be better placed to comply with the new industry environmental standards and so ensure we do not incur heavy financial penalties. It’s all about getting the best value for our money and the LG Network Monitors Solution is helping us do just that”.