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Case Study: HOBLink JWT 3.1 for Apple Macs Goes to School!Efficient Connectivity for a Sprawling High-Tech Campus Founded in 1841, Punahou School, located at the edge of the Manoa Valley in Honolulu, Hawaii, began with only 15 students. Now, with 3,700 students on a sprawling, 76 acre campus, it is the largest private school in the United States. In addition to providing the students enrolled in the grades Kindergarten to 12 with the knowledge and skills they will need to deal with a rapidly changing and increasingly interdependent world, Punahou School also strives to promote in them an understanding and appreciation of cultural diversity and global responsibility. With extensive, state-of-the-art communications, audio-video and library facilities, Punahou School also has nine computer laboratories distributed across the campus, and many computers in the classrooms, teachers’ offices, and elsewhere. Over 200 of these are Apple Macintosh computers running OS 9. When it came to finding a networking solution for their campus, Punahou School turned to Microsoft’s Windows Terminal Server and HOBLink JWT, the platform-independent, Java-based solution for accessing Windows Terminal Servers.
Punahou School uses a Windows-based program, called Senior Systems, with which they perform almost all administrative tasks, including general administrative work, financial management, scheduling classes, keeping track of the students’ grades, etc. They had already invested in a Microsoft Windows Terminal Server for central data storage and to provide a single-point-of-access to new applications, giving them a good start towards a comprehensive networking solution. They were, however, faced with the following dilemma: their main administrative program is Windows-based, yet about 85% of the computers used at Punahou are Macs. How were they going to bring these two apparently incompatible systems together under one roof? To solve this problem, they needed a platform-independent connectivity product to network their Mac workstations with the Windows Terminal Server running their Senior Systems program. Derrick Phan, Punahou’s System Administrator, did some research and discovered HOBLink JWT 3.1 for Mac on the web. We asked Mr. Phan why Punahou decided for HOBLink JWT and not another solution. “We also looked at Citrix MetaFrame,” Mr. Phan said, “but we found that HOBLink JWT had all the required features and was much less expensive.” Punahou uses HOBLink JWT in a web installation, which means that no components need to be installed on the Terminal Server (although, for added functionality, this is possible). “We love the web-based features,” exclaimed Mr. Phan, and added that the installation and setup were easy and straightforward. He was also impressed with the HOB support, both with the “very knowledgeable” support team, as well as the “quick response time” to his questions. Even more impressive was HOBLink JWT’s load-balancing feature, which provides true load balancing, continually measuring actual CPU load, thereby reducing server contention and making all student, faculty and staff sessions fast and error free. Plus – the HOBLink JWT load-balancing feature also provides better protection against system failures; when a server connection is interrupted, a re-connect is made to the next available server – and this backup comes at no extra cost!
One of the ways in which HOBLink JWT has positively impacted on the daily work routine at Punahou is the freedom the teachers now enjoy when entering information into the central Senior Systems program, for example, entering grades for the students. As most of the teachers at Punahou have Macs in their offices, they used to have to come to a PC lab to enter and edit information. Now, they can do this from their offices or laptops, allowing them to be more flexible and productive. When Punahou migrates to OS X and the Safari browser, HOBLink JWT will accompany them, as it is fully OS X compatible, and runs even better than before on the powerful Safari browser. Further information: HOB
webmaster@hobsoft.com, Last Updated: 18-Apr-08
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