Aims to reduce power consumption by 80%
The London Borough of Brent has appointed IT integrator Fordway to design and implement a thin client infrastructure aimed to reduce energy consumption by more than 80%.
The new infrastructure will support flexible working across the council’s workforce and help the council meet government energy efficiency and cost reduction targets, said the company.
Brent’s new Civic Centre aims to be the greenest public sector building in the UK. It wants a new efficiencies-driven flexible working programme and reduce IT administration costs.
The company said, Fordway has designed an offering aimed at maximising the potential of the council’s existing software licences. The virtualised infrastructure will use Microsoft Windows 7 as the core operating system and Office 2010 as the main desktop application.
New infrastructure will use 10Zig thin client terminals running on Quest vWorkspace, supported by Microsoft HyperV Server. The 10Zig terminals use just 14-15W of power per desktop, compared with 100-150W for a standard desktop PC. Additional power savings will come from intelligent user management, such as automatically suspending some servers overnight when users have gone home, said the company.
Fordway will first carry out detailed analysis and design and then build a proof-of-concept environment for an initial 250 users by the end of September 2011. Brent’s IT team will then complete the roll-out with support from Fordway, with all users migrated by the end of the year.
Fordway was awarded the work after a public tender.
Head of IT at the London Borough of Brent Tony Ellis said, "Given the ambitious energy saving design of our new Civic Centre we needed a new technical platform that was not only green but also able to transform the user experience of IT for our colleagues."
Fordway managing director Richard Blanford said, "We’re delighted to be leading the way in helping councils make savings in areas such as power consumption so they can use more of their budget to provide services for their residents."
