Case Study: Renfrewshire Council achieves secure, cost-effective Windows-integrated network storage with Synology Inc. DS211

Renfrewshire Council - Customer Case Study

Renfrewshire Council, which serves nearly 172,867 residents and operates 49 primary schools, needed a cost‑effective way to provide every pupil and staff member with network home folders and NTFS‑style ACLs without the high hardware, licensing and support costs of Windows servers. After two previous NAS solutions failed (poor AD integration, subnet limitations, unix‑like permissions and reliability issues), the council chose Synology Inc.'s DS211 to meet requirements for Windows‑integrated ACLs and multi‑subnet operation.

Synology Inc. deployed the DS211 to provide fast, resilient storage with proper Windows ACL support, intuitive management and multimedia (iTunes) hosting. Schools now back up DS211 data via rsync to high‑school servers (which are tape‑backed nightly), use per‑user home directories and group‑controlled shared folders, and centrally serve teaching media. The implementation delivered reliable AD integration across subnets, automated nightly backups, clearer access control and significant savings on hardware, licensing and support compared with a full Windows environment.

Renfrewshire Council

David Smith

ICT Engineer