Profiles in Success: Cartersville City Schools
Cartersville, GA — When Technology Coordinator Sheryl McDonald demonstrated an iMac running both Mac and Windows applications, administrators with Cartersville City Schools (CCS) sat up and took notice. Though the district had long used the Mac and Mac OS X as its platform of choice for student and academic computing, the Information Technology (IT) staff was just hours away from signing the purchase order for a large group of Windows-based computers for teachers and staff. Then McDonald showed that Mac OS X’s Boot Camp would allow an Intel-based iMac to run — on either platform — the Windows-specific applications needed by administrators. “Our superintendent just about lost it; he was so excited by the capabilities of Boot Camp! We saw that we could have the best of both worlds,” McDonald says. In no time the original paperwork was cancelled, and CCS ordered a flock of iMac computers. Now, McDonald says, CCS users have two computers in one.
Boot Camp, which is included in Leopard, the newest version of Mac OS X, provides unprecedented computing flexibility. The tool supplies all of the drivers needed to install and run the Windows XP operating system on an Intel-based Mac.* Once Leopard has been installed, a user need only hold down the “option” key at startup to choose between Mac OS X and Windows. After starting up, the Mac will run Windows completely natively. Returning to the Mac platform is as easy as restarting the computer.
Users can log in from either a Mac or a PC… Their files are mapped so they can create something on the Windows side, back it up to their user folder on the network, and then log in on the Mac side and be off and running with it.
— Sheryl McDonald,
Technical Coordinator,
Cartersville City Schools
Since CCS’s administrative systems — and its high school — previously were Windows-based, Dr. Howard Hinesley, CCS superintendent, thought it would make financial sense to purchase more PCs. “We were looking at a major expenditure to refresh all of our old computers, which we wanted to do quickly,” Hinesley says. “We had a number of systems — our data warehouse, our financial systems, and other applications — that were Windows-based. But when Sheryl did the demo of Boot Camp on the iMac, I thought that was a fabulous solution to our situation.”
* Boot Camp users must provide their own copy of the Windows XP operating system.
Easy iMac Integration with Active Directory
Another advantage of the iMac purchase was the computers’ easy integration of Microsoft’s Active Directory Service, a distributed directory service that is included in the Windows operating system. Since CCS had already implemented Active Directory, by simply adding the tool to the iMac computers, McDonald and her team were able to give teachers and staff the freedom to use any application — or platform — desired, without costly upgrades to their existing infrastructure.
Says McDonald, “We set the computers up so that there’s one system log-in. Then users can log in from either a Mac or a PC, and their files are mapped so they can create something on the Windows side, back it up to their user folder on the network, and then log in on the Mac side and be off and running with it.”
Objectives
- Replace all faculty and staff computers in school district
- Enable users to work with virtually any desired applications
- Support users who prefer to work on either the Mac or Windows platform
Solutions
- 4410 Intel-based iMac computers with built-in AirPort Extreme wireless* networking
- Mac OS X with Boot Camp
- iLife ’06
- Parallels**, Active Directory, Microsoft Office
Results
- District derived significant savings with Intel-based iMac computers
- No infrastructure modifications were necessary to support wireless environment
- Users can work in their preferred computing environment, with their familiar applications
*Internet access requires a wireless-enabled computer, a base station or other access point, and Internet access (fees may apply). Some ISPs are not currently compatible with AirPort. Range may vary with site conditions.
**The mention of third-party products is for informational purposes only and represents neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.
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