DepEd Partners With NComputing To Provide Computers To 3,077 Schools

DepEd Partners With NComputing To Provide Computers To 3,077 Schools

Computer networks, even small ones, are becoming more and more crucial not just in business, but also in education. Rolling them out however, is a very expensive proposition, in terms of acquisition, and also in terms of maintenance and operation costs. NComputing, a company that specializes in end-to-end computer system virtualization, has recently completed a project with the Philippines' Department of Education (DepEd) to provide 29,400 computers to 3,077 public schools across the country, with operations and hardware cost savings of up to 75% and electricity cost savings of 90%.

NComputing's research shows that while PC computing power has increased dramatically, the applications that most students and small businesses use have basically stayed the same, resulting in excess computing capacity. This excess capacity is then distributed across a network via the company's virtualization devices. Depending on the type of applications used and the specifications of the host PC, you can connect anywhere between three to 10 or more virtualization devices to one PC. For example, if the computers needed are going to be used  just for Internet research and word processing, you can distribute one PC's computing power to 10 devices. CPU-intensive applications like AutoCAD or Adobe Photoshop would limit the number to about three clients per host PC. In any case, you save a lot of money on hardware and electricity.

Through the help of their local distributor, Mustard Seed Systems, NComputing rolled out 29,400 kits to 3,077 public schools in Luzon,the Visayas region, and in Mindanao, between March and September, 2011. These kits were set up with 5,000 host PCs, which works out to a kit to PC ratio of six to one. So instead of purchasing and maintaining over 29,000 individual PCs, DepEd needed only 5,000, translating into huge cost savings. 

While their collaboration with the Department of Education has been their marquee project, NComputing also provides the same computer network virtualization solutions for corporations and small businesses like Internet cafes. The list price for one of the virtualization kits is Php4,000, although that should drop significantly depending on how many are going to be used. For more information, please refer to the press release on the next page or visit www.ncomputing.com