Do students utilize all the computers on your college or university campus? How do you know for sure?
You can save or reallocate a significant portion of your IT budget by right-sizing hardware. This could mean reducing computers in different areas across campus.
There are benefits and risks to reducing hardware.
– Save on cleaning and remodeling costs (regularly scheduled sanitation, plexiglass dividers, directional signage, etc.) – Save on maintenance costs (power, heating/cooling, network access) – Focus staff time on high priority work, rather than routine maintenance of unused computers – Move machines to other departments or campuses where needed (doubling savings) – Sell unused machines to generate cash in the short-term – Loan out or donate unused machines to students in need or staff who are working from home
– Students might lose access to needed resources
How to strategically reduce computers
To ensure that students don’t lose access to necessary computers, review your LabStats usage data to see which computers students rely on, and which computers they rarely or never use. This will help you determine if you can reduce hardware, how many computers can go, and which ones should be the first to be cut.
LabStats Reports
Peak Usage History– shows the highest number of computers in-use at the same time.
Steps
Navigate to Reports. Then click Peak Usage History.
Select a date range and include all stations.
Date range: Look for the pattern of usage on campus in the current situation– Start with February 1 – April 30, or any range that reflects when lockdowns went into effect at your institution.
All stations: Start with all stations to get an overview of usage across all computers that have LabStats installed. Later on you can run this report on a more detailed level–by department, lab, etc. depending on how your groups and tags are configured.
Examining peak usage should give you a good sense of how many machines you need to support.
Shut down machines that aren’t needed.
Shutting down either entire labs or a selection of machines in open labs to help with social distancing.
Continue to monitor usage.
As new semesters start, restrictions of movement tighten or ease and you are able to publish the availability of resources, usage will change. Run this report daily or weekly to monitor usage and ensure you’re meeting demand.
Peak Usage History
Example
In the example above, peak usage hovered around 80%, or 800 machines. When the campus closed to all non-essential staff, usage dropped to less than 100 machines.
This school could safely reduce in-person availability to 20%, or 200 machines, without negatively impacting students. That leaves 600 computers that don’t need immediate attention, and could possibly be cut altogether, or transitioned into remote-access only machines.
What’s Next
Once you’ve determined the computers you can safely eliminate, start considering what to do with them.
Consider using some machines as dedicated remote access resources. The LabStats Remote Access Dashboard allows students to access hardware on campus, from the safety of their homes. Remember, remote access sessions are included in LabStats reports. You could turn whole labs into remote-only, or assign every other computer in a lab to be remote-only to aid in social distancing efforts.
Socially distanced lab at 50% capacity
Socially distanced & remote lab at 100% capacity
Other options include moving machines to departments or campuses who might not have the funds to purchase, selling unused machines to reduce inventory overhead, or loaning out or donating unused machines to students in need or staff who are working from home.
This is the time for creative solutions and using data to make strategic budget decisions.
Work With Us
LabStats specializes in helping IT leaders reduce spend and get their budgets right.
