Boston, MA — On orientation day at the famed Berklee College of Music, new students receive everything they’ll need for the upcoming school year: a student ID card, a list of their scheduled classes, a tour of their dorm, and more. At the beginning of the Fall 2003 school year, 1700 students also headed over to their local Apple office, where they attended a session called “Pick Up Your Mac” and received a PowerBook G4 laptop. As all students have discovered, the Mac laptops (now a requirement on the Berklee campus) keep their coursework note-perfect.
Should prospective parents and students wonder “why Mac,” the answer can be found on Berklee’s own website. In the opinion of faculty and administrators, “We have found that students who have experience working on the Macintosh platform at Berklee are better prepared when they enter the music profession, where the Macintosh platform and the same software used in our coursework are prevalent and vital tools.”
If that sounds like a pretty strong endorsement by the college, it is. Just ask David Mash, Berklee’s vice president for information technology. “We’ve only had the Mac laptop purchase requirement for one year,” Mash reports, “but early indications are that our students will be much better prepared to work in the music profession when they leave. We believe the PowerBook computers are going to be a big asset in our ability to teach our students the skills they’ll need in their music careers.”
We have found that students who have experience working on the Macintosh platform at Berklee are better prepared when they enter the music profession.
— David Mash, Vice President of Information Technology, Berklee College of Music
2000 Laptops Ready to Go
Normally, getting 2000 laptops configured and ready to roll is no picnic. But Mash says NetBoot and Network Install (both features of Mac OS X Server) and Xserve made quick work of the task during the laptop program’s first few days. With an automated process, Gigabit switches, the use of the Xserve’s multiple drives, and Apple’s powerful network administration technologies, he and his team had each machine imaged and waiting for student pick-up in minutes.
Says Mash, “We created a master image and put it on the Xserve, which let us configure multiple machines at the same time. Using this approach it takes about 12 minutes per machine, something that used to take hours by hand. Since we expect to distribute another 1400 PowerBook laptops during the 2004-2005 school year, this will be a huge timesaver for us.
“The cool thing is,” Mash continues, “we now have licenses with Apple and the software vendors that allows us to distribute new versions this way. For example, our bundle with Apple comes with Mac OS X, iCal, and the iLife suite, including GarageBand. When a new version of these programs comes out, students can just point their laptops at the Xserve and download the installer themselves.”
Apple Tools Keep Data Safe
Once the students take possession of their PowerBook laptops, they can make sure the systems stay in tip-top shape at the on-campus Apple Authorized Service Center. Should repairs be needed, students merely pick up a “loaner” laptop from inventory, and send their computer off to Apple. In the event that anyone loses data, NetRestore can quickly get them back on track.
“In June of 2004 seven iMac computers were stolen from our offices,” recalls Mash. “The staff came in the next morning, and everyone said, ‘How are we going to work?’ Actually, it was simple — we brought in some spare machines, the staff logged onto our Xserve, ran NetRestore, and they had instant access to all of their files. No time was lost, because everything was ‘living’ on the server. The same process works for students, too: if anyone has a problem with their laptop, NetRestore will quickly recover all of their files and applications. This has been a very slick solution for us.”
