Star International Schools to adopt Sun thin clients

Dubai's Star International School (SIS) has revealed that it will soon be implementing Sun thin clients in its computer labs instead of traditional Windows-based systems.

SIS falls under the umbrella of ETA-Star Education Management Systems which is part of UAE-based ETA-Star Holdings, a group with diverse interests in a number of sectors including transport and construction.

SIS's IT manager John Nash previously installed thin client systems at his former employer, Sharjah's Scholars International Academy (SIA) and says that he will adopt a broadly similar template.

"We're going with Sun Microsystems thin clients, VMware and Windows XP. This is the early stage of deployment so we're only using 20 thin clients and then ten laptops for a maximum of 30 units in total," he says.

"We plan to increase the number of thin clients so that we have one per class and then our laptops become the bank of computers for cross-curricula work. We're also looking at eSafe as a firewall for our security to protect the children," he added.

The system is expected to go live in early January.