Case Study: Knutsford Academy

Knutsford Academy Case Study
I manage all the IT at the Knutsford Academy. I was looking for an IT infrastructure that supported our high standards and maintained our excellent reputation. To achieve this I asked CCS Media to create an agile and efficient environment that delivers a new IT experience for students and staff alike.

Through a series of workshops we partnered with CCS Media’s technical team to develop a solution that would deliver on all key areas. The process was very collaborative; CCS Media really took the time to understand our needs and the issues we were facing. They are a lot more than simple suppliers. This kind of working relationship is invaluable. The end result of the workshops was a two phased, guided physical to virtual, server project plan.

About Knutsford Academy
Knutsford Academy provides opportunities for students and staff to work with the wider community and encourages parents to play an active role in supporting their children’s education.

The academy strives to ensure that the culture and ethos is one in which, whatever the heritage and origins of members of the academy community, everyone is equally valued and treats one another with respect. We believe that each student and adult within our community is unique, has rights and responsibilities and should be treated equally and with respect.

The academy has strong links with local organisations, including businesses, the police, churches and the town council, all of whom provide valuable support in different areas of the curriculum. Students have recently worked in partnership with Mid-Cheshire Rail Network to design and produce a garden and artwork for Knutsford Railway Station.

The school has been nationally acclaimed through awards in recognition of the variety of school activities involving the community.

It was agreed that the new virtual environment would be built on HP Server and Storage with WMware virtualisation technology. Through this we created high availability and Vmotion services for IT service continuity.

CCS Media’s project team installed new host servers and conducted the initial physical to virtual server migration. They then configured the new environment with a HP Storage platform. This created high availability and Vmotion services within the new infrastructure. Using their expertise CCS Media delivered a complete project, from the initial stages of understanding our needs, through to implementation.

We are now using this new infrastructure to good effect. Needless to say, we are delighted that we have an advanced and future proof IT environment that is scalable and meets the demands of a progressive academy.