Relution – maximum solution for teacher and student devices

As a private school authority for several schools, the smallest diocese in Germany in terms of area is independently responsible for the overall management of its school facilities. Modern knowledge transfer is a top priority.

Since 2017, the Diocese of Essen has been using NetMan for Schools from H+H Software GmbH to set up secure, low-maintenance school IT in its seven schools, ensuring good as well as trouble-free face-to-face teaching with over 1,000 end devices. Due to the immediate equipment program launched by the federal government in the DigitalPakt, a solution for clear, fast and secure device management as well as the connection to the existing educational network with NetMan for Schools must now be found quickly with the long-standing partner, H+H Software GmbH. For the 4,200 Windows and Apple devices, which are primarily used in a 1:1 configuration, the decision was quickly made in favor of Relution. "Relution has an extremely broad portfolio of capabilities; especially with iPads, Apple TVs, iMacs, Mac minis and MacBooks," says Udo Martinetz, Project Manager School Project.

Secure and modern knowledge transfer

Other advantages of Relution include hosting the data on local servers in the school's own data centers (On Premises) to meet the high data protection requirements. The optimized integration of MDM with the existing NetMan for Schools system makes it possible to use the existing data directory structures for students and teachers - for example, via WebDAV, Apple School Manager or Microsoft Active Directory. "In addition to the connection to common server solutions and the reliability of the system, the ease of use of Relution stands out. This is indispensable when dealing with many different schools with diverse requirements and wishes," explains Jonas Hunder, IT administrator and IT project coordinator.

Time savings thanks to easy handling

The intuitive usability became noticeable when an enormous mass rollout of new devices had to be implemented ad hoc. According to experience, capacities were planned that surprisingly did not have to be used: "We could hardly believe it and were positively amazed that the commissioning of such a large number of new devices with Relution worked without any problems and no negative feedback was received," reports Markus Strack, the IT administrator and project manager of the IT department.

Decision criterion: digitalization

The number of school registrations shows that digitization is very well received, especially in the school sector, and is now considered a location criterion. "Parents look very closely with regard to the digital equipment of schools. If a neighboring school adjacent to the diocese is more advanced, parents are more likely to register their children at that location. That's why we are keen to push ahead with digitization quickly and across the board," Strack continues. In addition to the students, the teachers also benefit from using Relution: "They really enjoy working with Relution because they receive optimally equipped devices that are perfectly managed by the MDM in the background and modern, chaos-free lessons can be started and carried out without any hurdles," adds Markus Strack.

Numbers, data, facts

• 4,200 Relution licenses
• 1,200 NetMan for Schools licenses
• 7 schools
• 3 managed operating systems