Case Study: Plainedge Union Free School District achieves high-availability, high-performance VDI and a seamless classroom experience with DataCore Software

Plainedge Union Free School District - Customer Case Study

Plainedge Union Free School District, a K–12 district on Long Island serving roughly 3,000 students and 700 staff, faced shrinking budgets and a highly complex IT environment with extensive classroom technologies and a large 1:1 iPad program. While they had already virtualized desktops with VMware Horizon and Dell Wyse zero‑client endpoints to eliminate PC maintenance, the district needed highly available, high‑performance storage to support VDI and virtual servers — so they engaged DataCore and its SANsymphony software‑defined storage.

DataCore deployed SANsymphony in a synchronous two‑node, mirrored configuration on Dell PowerEdge servers, virtualizing mixed backend arrays (EqualLogic, EMC and SSDs) with auto‑tiering and caching. The solution enabled Plainedge to manage 36 TB of pooled storage, support ~1,400 virtual desktops and 85 VMs for 3,600+ users, cut daily endpoint tickets almost to zero, deliver sub‑3‑second desktop reconnects, boost IOPS and overall performance, and realize ongoing cost savings by leveraging existing storage — meeting the district’s availability and throughput goals.

Plainedge Union Free School District

Guy J. Le Vaillant

Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources & Instructional Technology