Customer Case Study: UDTConnect™ Integrated Collaboration, Content Sharing and Display Solutions

When Jennifer Torlone stepped into her new role as Vice President of Information Technology with Willis Lease, she saw a gap between business and technology and the need for new, innovative solutions. She knew Willis Lease Finance Corporation, a provider of aviation services and leaser of aircraft equipment worldwide, needed to consolidate their IT assets but lacked a trusted partner to help assess, execute and manage their move to the cloud.

CLIENT – INDUSTRY VERTICAL

Education (K-12): Private, Florida-based Christian elementary school.

CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY

One of UDT‘s clients is a private Christian college-preparatory preschool, elementary, and secondary school, located on Florida’s west coast. The school is a multi-campus facility, which had needs to consolidate learning systems and data, and create more opportunities for the use of these tools and information for student and teacher collaboration. Connecting all of the services necessary to support innovation and more creative, effective teaching and learning, and to offer these programs across campuses, was previously considered prohibitively expensive.

UDT had previously provided, and continues to support, services surrounding IT infrastructure and applications for the school. For this reason, UDT’s team was engaged to undertake a presales consultative effort to understand the needs for collaboration in classrooms and/or other campus locations and facilities. This involved the development – collaboratively between the school’s leadership and UDT’s team – of a unique proof of concept for a consolidated service into which complex data and application feeds could be brought together for an optimal educational experience.

UDT recommended the use of the company’s unique, patent-pending UDTConnect™ solution to meet the school’s requirements. UDTConnect is a complete, fully managed, proprietary solution for collaboration and content sharing, communications, broadcast media, as well as comprehensive digitally supported security and safety, all through a single smart display. Delivered in partnership with Samsung® Electronics and developed using the Miracast™ standard for wireless connections between laptops, tablets, and smartphones to smart displays running on Microsoft® Windows 10, the system utilizes server and integration software run on Microsoft Windows or Microsoft Azure® Cloud. (UDT is a Microsoft Gold Competency Partner in multiple Microsoft business and technology disciplines.)

All communications, broadcast media, IP camera feeds, and potentially any device controlled by a wireless connection can be integrated into the system and used with the smart display. In short, the devices are integrated into a comprehensive system for a unique, streamlined offering to end-users. In the case of UDT’s private elementary school client, UDTConnect could bring together standard and proprietary learning, information-sharing, creative and other applications with data streams and more, right to one central display, across campuses, classrooms and more.

Following the discovery, UDT was engaged by the school to implement more than forty (40) UDTConnect displays across its campuses. UDT helped the school to determine hardware, software, and professional services to implement UDTConnect on-premises (“on-prem”). The specific UDTConnect solution for the school is UDT’s on-prem service, utilizing existing IT infrastructure, not the 100% bundled offering that can be provided to other clients. This enables the school to leverage economies of scale to upgrade – under educational budget – the backend services for systems controlling data streams and application delivery and share them through a still seamless to users (i.e. students and teachers) UDTConnect display/visual front-end.

UDT provided an initial service to benchmark, test and implement UDTConnect (supported by UDT’s Professional Services team) on the campus and in classrooms and other teaching/learning facilities, executed in a phased deployment. Post-implementation, UDT has provided continued support and further display implementations through UDT’s Lifecyle Management Services Organization.

Currently in-process is a pilot integration of the UDTConnect solution into the school’s fire safety services. This would enable integrated streams of content from cameras and other fire safety systems to be comingled for live broadcast alerts during teaching and learning sessions. Once completed, UDT has also been asked to discuss the potential integration of the UDTConnect solution into the school’s active incident/active shooter planning and related services.

CO-SELL OPPORTUNITY

UDT is a Microsoft Gold-competency Partner. UDTConnect™ has been developed through a unique cooperation between UDT, Microsoft – including the company’s global Internet of Things (IoT) team – Samsung Electronics, and distribution and other partners.

OFFERING:

UDTOpenConnect™:
Connects through standard video connection to third-party projector or other display
Managed services offering running on standard X86 intel-based CPU instruction set, utilizing Microsoft® Windows 10 and UDT’s proprietary UDTOpenConnect software (enabling digital signage, communications, emergency notifications and more)

SOLUTION HIGHLIGHTS:

UDTConnect’s server and integration software both run on Microsoft Windows or Microsoft Azure Cloud. The solution’s package server software runs on VMs in Microsoft Azure.
UDTConnect can capture IoT data from devices and technology, load this information into the Microsoft Azure Cloud, and be utilized in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Business Intelligence (BI), Machine Learning, Cognitive Services and more—all of this only possible through the cloud (leveraging Microsoft Azure).
The solution also uses Microsoft services to track the consumption of content: It is scheduled on a Microsoft-powered, UDTConnect content channel, which organizations can utilize to determine how many times content is consumed, where it is consumed and more, and then build data statistics for the effectiveness and utilization of digital learning and other assets.
If the delivery of the UDTConnect solution is on-premises (“on-prem”), it requires Windows Server (IIS) or Microsoft Azure VMs.
UDT’s solution wirelessly connects Windows devices, presentation and collaboration to displays via Miracast®.

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