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Robinson College Achieves Smart Systems Management with Dell KACE

Dell KACE appliance helps Cambridge University college to expand IT support for Fellows; automates key IT tasks such as patching, application deployment and service requests

Bracknell, UK – 13th July 2010 - Dell KACE today announced that Robinson College at Cambridge University is using the Dell KACE K1200 Management Appliance to manage its desktops, servers and application updates across the College, saving significant time and resources. With the KACE appliance, Robinson College has automated management tasks such as patching and updating applications; this has allowed the IT team to expand and improve services for administrative staff and Fellows across the College.

Robinson College has more than 500 students and 80 Fellows, as well as its administrative staff of 65. The IT team, headed by IT Manager Bridget Kenyon, is responsible for ensuring that the College’s supported PCs and servers are up to date with the latest patches, application versions and security settings.

“Previous to using the KACE appliance, a task such as applying a critical security update for Adobe or Java would have taken about a week to complete across all the machines we support.” said Kenyon. “With the K1200, we can automate the process so all our machines are updated automatically in a few minutes. This not only saves us a significant amount of time, but it also means that we can concentrate on more high-value activities. With the KACE appliance, we have been able to offer IT support to the Fellows that reside in the College alongside our work maintaining systems for the administrative staff; this would otherwise have required a huge investment in resources.”

The IT Department at Robinson College is using the KACE appliance to support faster delivery of patches and new applications to users. Kenyon is also making use of the K1200’s Labels technology to provide proactive support with application updates and to identify issues such as users running out of disk space. “Labels are really useful for us, as we can take a proactive approach to dealing with problems before they start affecting users. For example, if someone joins the network and is running an out-of-date version of Adobe Reader or Firefox, the machine will be automatically labeled as such, and then updated in the background within seconds by the K1200. This reduces the risk of users being affected by security problems, as well as helping the IT team to solve problems before a call is put into the Help-desk. Overall, we are realising a tremendous amount of value from the KACE appliance, and we are looking forward to making more use of its systems management tools going forward.”

Jim Docherty, EMEA managing director at Dell KACE, commented, “Organisations are looking at how to make their IT systems management processes more efficient, as a lot of IT resources are currently dedicated to tasks that don’t offer much value back to users. With KACE, those tasks can be automated so IT can concentrate on being innovative and demonstrating the real worth that IT can provide. This ability to achieve greater responsiveness to users and deliver better levels of efficiency is ultimately what the right strategy for systems management is all about.”

Dell KACE systems management and deployment appliances are designed to offer organisations a simple, cost effective route to achieving better management of their IT resources. They are invaluable for IT managers who are responsible for multiple areas of technology, including tasks such as patching, security, system configuration, help-desk support or application deployment. KACE appliances provide the tools that they require to manage their distributed systems, saving them time and their organizations money.


About Dell
Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) creates, enhances and integrates technology and services customers count on to provide them reliable, long-term value. Dell provides system-management solutions for customers of all sizes and system complexity. The award-winning Dell KACE family of appliances delivers easy-to-use, comprehensive, and affordable systems management capabilities. For more information, visit www.dellkace.com or follow the conversation at http://twitter.com/DellKACE.

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Editorial contact:
Mark Kember
Goode International for KACE
Tel: +44(0)1491 873323
Email: kace@goode.co.uk