Faronics Deep Freeze and Valdosta State University
 History
Originally called South Georgia State Normal College, Valdosta State University (VSU) was founded in 1906, though classes did not begin until 1913. In 1950 the school became co-educational and changed its name to Valdosta State College. On July 1, 1993 VSC became VSU.
Valdosta is located in South Georgia near coastal resorts on a Spanish Mission-style campus, nationally recognized for its beauty. The university is situated midway between Atlanta and Orlando, and serves a population base of over 123,000 people.
Valdosta furnishes a unique atmosphere with a broad range of student activities, from NCAA Division II Gulf South Conference athletics, to a comprehensive curriculum including five colleges: Arts, Arts & Sciences, Business, Education, and Nursing.
Situation
VSU’s enrollment is approaching 12,000 students representing 47 states and 63 countries. VSU employs approximately 1,500 faculty and staff members. The two campuses, less than a mile apart, have grown to more than 178 acres. The two satellite schools, in Albany and Kingsland, are managed remotely.
VSU has 75 computer labs with over 3,000 desktop computers. Approximately 1,700 of those computers are student labs, with the remainder being used by faculty and staff. The vast majority of desktops are running Windows XP/2000. The school has a number of servers with varied operating systems: approximately 10 Windows Servers, 30 Netware Servers, and 15 Sun Solaris servers.
Problem
VSU IT professionals are being stretched to the limit, and internal and external threats are becoming increasingly harder to identify and block than ever before. Enrollment is steadily increasing, budgets are becoming more restrictive, and students are becoming more computer and web savvy than ever.
At VSU, the IT department faces the constant problem of computers being inconsistent across the enterprise, and are continually fighting user “sabotage” of software and operating system configurations. The security threats facing VSU include malicious users, as well as harm caused by innocent clickers who are not aware of the results of their actions. VSU is also dealing with the pervasive problem of malware in the form of viruses, rootkits, spyware, and botnets.
The IT department at VSU used NT policies to lock down the machines. They also re-imaged labs on a daily or weekly basis. The IT staff consisted of four to five employees and six part-time students to help with configuration issues. They spent about 60% of their time just handling image corruption and configuration issues within labs. This led to an increase of technological demand outpacing the technological support, and helpdesk calls escalating beyond control.
Solution
Jeremy Scott, manager of VSU’s Desktop Management Services Group, first discovered Deep Freeze doing a Google search for locking down systems. He did a basic study of the program, ran a trial version on a lab, and found it to be immediately useful. At the time, VSU only had about 20 Labs on campus, or about 500 machines.
Mr. Scott evaluated one or two other solutions, but found that Deep Freeze caused much less system performance degradation, and had more features than competing products at the time.
Evaluation
Of the current desktops machines at Valdosta, Deep Freeze is now installed on approximately 1,700 of them. VSU’s students now have unrestricted access to all available learning resources, and most problems can be solved instantly with a simple reboot. Computer configuration remains consistent every time a student logs on and instructors have a parallel environment in which to teach.
VSU’s teachers do not have to spend any time troubleshooting computer problems or irregularities, and they can instruct students in an unrestricted environment. Julie Halter, Assistant Director of Public Services at Valdosta, says that Deep Freeze has been a tremendous benefit to the labs in Continuing Education. “Our instructors appreciate being able to count on the desktops and general settings all looking and acting the same,” she said. “Without Deep Freeze, I would have to spend a lot of time, which I don’t have, resetting and maintaining the labs for classes, and I’m sure there would be an increase in calls to the micro-support staff as well.”
VSU’s Desktop Management Services department manages the desktop machines with Deep Freeze, and now consists of two full-time and one part-time staff. “To have that number of staff handling 1,700 computers is amazing,” said Mr. Scott. The department can now solve most software computer problems with a reboot, and tech support calls have been dramatically reduced. T he only calls they get are regarding network, hardware, or software installation issues. Computers no longer need to be rebuilt or re-imaged, and IT staff can now focus on higher priority tasks. They now only re-image as needed or on a semester basis.
VSU has been able to grow their labs and allow students access to more systems because of the decrease in required maintenance of those systems.
“We used the Return on Investment gained from using Deep Freeze to buy more computers,” said Mr. Scott. “We have more than doubled the amount of computers and labs, and the only issues we have are ones relating to network, hardware, or software installation. And students have been given more access to the computers to improve their learning experience, since we don’t have to lock everything down.”
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