“When I discovered Zentyal, it seemed like an amazing all-in-one. Setting up any of our network services with a couple of clicks and just leave it running seemed like magic to me. Deploying our infrastructure in a couple of days had been unthinkable until then.”
Daniel Muñoz, IT Administrator, Santa María del Bosque School
Used to managing their IT infrastructure with Linux servers, the Santa María del Bosque School opted for Zentyal as its network grew. Their goals were threefold: facilitate the configuration of network services, to ensure that systems were always up-to-date and to get help with occasional problems.
The challenge
The Santa Maria del Bosque School was used to managing its computer network with Linux servers, but as the number of computers grew and the need for additional network services increased, the server configuration required more and more maintenance and management time. It was not the same to provide Internet access for about 20 PCs than to manage in an orderly manner several domains, DNS/DHCP, shared files, WiFi access points, web server and a long list of other services.
There were three main challenges they were facing: difficulty to obtain help for occasional problems, extensive manual modification of text configuration files required to configure the services and the need to reinstall servers to update their systems. In this context, they found Zentyal to be an amazing all-in-one that allowed them to configure the necessary services with a couple of clicks and leave them running. Deploying their infrastructure, which consisted of two differentiated networks each with its own peculiarities, in a couple of days had been unthinkable until then.
The solution
The Santa María del Bosque School deployment provides service to about 80 PCs and 70 devices connected via WiFi. Two clean Zentyal servers were installed: one to provide services to students and another for teachers and administrative staff. The hardware used was Intel i5- 6400 CPU 2.70GHz, 16GB of RAM, 500GB HD and two network cards.
The Computer Classroom Server needed to provide Internet access to two computer classes to allow browsing and to enforce content filtering. For this purpose the HTTP proxy, DHCP, firewall and antivirus modules were enabled. The web server, FTP server and DNS modules allow hosting of a domain for internal use where to host web pages and their own cloud server where projects and exercises are stored. Additionally, the bandwidth monitor module was also enabled to control and prevent the downloading of large files that could affect the use of Internet.
The Administration Server needed to provide Internet access to teachers and administrative staff without restrictions. This server also hosts the intranet domain of the school, several shared folders for exclusive use of administrative staff and teachers, the file backup and WiFi access. The modules enabled in this server include HTTP proxy, DHCP, firewall, antivirus, web server, FTP server, DNS, file sharing together with domain and directory services. To prevent access by external users to the school’s WiFi, network policies and allocation of IPs by MAC were implemented in order to control the access of the assigned devices.
As critical services were not affected and the change was carried out during the holiday period, it didn’t take longer than a week to move the test deployment to productions.
The experience
For the Santa María del Bosque School, Zentyal offers a robust product with excellent support that covers all the doubts and problems that arise from daily use. They consider that thanks to Zentyal it is possible to have the necessary IT infrastructure in schools that otherwise wouldn’t have one due to limited availability of qualified technical personnel and economic resources.
From their point of view, the best feature of the Zentyal Server is the simple installation and configuration of the product. This makes them able to obtain a 100% functional product by inserting a very little data. “On the other hand, you forget that you have the server: everything works, it does not require excessive maintenance and it never gives problems.”
About Santa María del Bosque School
The Santa María del Bosque School is an educational center located in Madrid (Spain) that offers preschool, primary, secondary and high-school education. The primary objective of the Santa María del Bosque School is the integral education of the students and it prepares them to collaborate in the achievement of a more humane and fairer world through active, responsible and supportive participation in the competitive society in which we are living today. It is a non-denominational center, governed by Escolar Cervera S.A., which is a secular organization, but which welcomes all kinds of ideology, confession, belief and activism.