Case Study: Dundee and Angus College achieves scalable, cost-saving VDI for 1,000 concurrent users with NetApp SolidFire

Meeting the demands of consolidation while supporting education

Dundee and Angus College, one of Scotland’s largest further and higher education providers with about 4,000 full-time students and 10,000 distance learners, needed to replace costly, complex legacy storage and consolidate multiple silos while supporting a new VDI environment that serves around 1,000 concurrent users. The college wanted a flexible, easy-to-manage platform that avoided frequent “forklift” upgrades and reduced recurring capital expenditure.

They chose NetApp SolidFire—proven in a rapid proof-of-concept (up and running in 25 minutes) and deployed as a 14-node all‑flash cluster—consolidating storage into a single pool, simplifying management, and enabling remote access to virtual environments. The move cut recurring capital costs through capacity licensing, delivered predictable, scalable performance, and improved flexibility and learning outcomes for students and staff.

Dundee and Angus College

Kris Getchell

Head of ICT Services