Maharashtra is India’s second largest state and includes the city of Mumbai— India’s commercial capital. In order to ensure that its workforce is ready for the modern work place, the state government established the Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited (MKCL) to provide adults with essential IT and computing skills. The MKCL fulfills its mission through a large network of learning centers across the state. The learning centers are operated by small and mid-sized IT enterprises.

Demanding computing environment

The standalone PCs that were installed in the learning centers created several challenges for the owners and the students. For the owners, standalone PCs were expensive to purchase and had to be replaced every few years. Due to electricity shortages in the state, many centers only get a few hours of electricity in the daytime. So they either used expensive diesel generators to power the PCs or operated at night. For the students, the PCs took up a lot of counter space, which was already limited due to tight spacing. And due to electricity shortages, many centers operated between 2am – 6 am, which put a strain on students. MKCL needed a low-cost, zero-footprint, energy-sipping alternative to rooms full of desktop PCs.

The NComputing advantage

After a rigorous evaluation of alternatives, MKCL chose NComputing virtual desktops. NComputing takes advantage of the fact that today’s PCs are so powerful that the vast majority of users only need a small fraction of the computing capacity. NComputing taps this unused capacity so that it can be simultaneously shared by many users. Each user’s monitor, keyboard & mouse are connected to a small NComputing thin-client device, which is then connected to the shared PC. NComputing’s award-winning vSpace desktop virtualization software provides each user with a rich multimedia computing experience and their own computing session. Organizations typically save at least 75% on hardware and support costs, and 90% of electricity costs.

Impressive results

MKCL worked closely with NComputing’s regional partner to deploy NComputing’s X-series virtual desktops which enable up to 11 computing stations to connect to a standard desktop PC. In just one year, over 1,000 learning centers deployed NComputing. Mr. Vivek Sawant, Managing Director of MKCL says, “MKCL’s goal is to expand computer learning to millions of learners who need essential IT skills to join the 21st-century workplace. Our challenge was to expand computing access in a highly economical and eco-friendly way and the NComputing solution was a perfect fit. We are pleased that in less than a year, we have been able to install or expand computing access in 1,000 centers and now plan to expand to another 5,000 centers in the next two years.”