Govt of Andhra Pradesh : Shared Computing Deployment in Schools

The largest state in southern India with a population of around 70 million
people, had an ambitious plan to bring computer access into the government
schools. Battling shoestring government budgets, unreliable access to power in
remote locations where the schools are situated, cost of UPS systems and
non-availability of petrol to power generators, the government zeroed in on
NComputing solutions that utilizes 1 watt of power and hence, low cost, low
power systems.

According to the Andhra government, another big challenge for the deployment
besides scale, power and cost issues was that it is a complex project that
involves multiple suppliers like system integrators, OEMs and software
providers. NComputing and all service providers involved, like NIIT, Educomp,
Everonn, and IEG, along with OEM vendors like HP, HCL, and Acer and software
vendor Microsoft had to coordinate their efforts and work jointly as teams to
collaborate with the government. Given the extremely limited funding, the
government of Andhra Pradesh sought the most cost-effective way to provide
computing access to 5,000 of its schools. The overall cost of the project was
around 300 crores for 5 years; approx 20% was saved by deploying the NComputing
solution.

This solution consists of virtualization software that enables a single PC to
be shared by many users. Each user's monitor, keyboard, and mouse are connected
to a very small and highly reliable NComputing access device, which is then
connected to the shared PC. NComputing access devices and software can allow as
many as 11(in X series) or 30 (in L series) users to access the capability of
one PC, thus bringing down the cost of infrastructure, installation, and
maintenance.