Transit Modernization

Commuting in Austin, Texas, had long been frustrating. The roads were among the most congested in the nation, and the public transit system had become more crowded. Computing, too, was difficult for the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority because of application access problems.

To tackle its network traffic jam, Capital Metro put new technology in the driver’s seat early this year, including application virtualization software that makes it easier for branch-office call center agents to access bus schedules in real time. The software addition comes a year after the transit agency stepped up its data center server consolidation and began replacing desktops with thin clients, programs that continue today. The agency is working to replicate systemwide the improvements made in its Special Transit Services call center.

“We’ve been working hard to make things run more efficiently,” says Jason Blevins, network administrator for the agency. Virtualizing servers and desktops and using thin-client devices helps. “Now, we can focus more on the software, instead of just on hardware repairs and maintenance.”

IT Overhaul

Austin’s public transportation system is undergoing a vast overhaul as part of a long-term plan called All Systems Go! The plan addresses the pressures of regional population growth in the Greater Austin area, which is expected to double in the next 25 years. Ongoing projects include construction of South Congress Transit Center, slated to open this summer; the purchase of new trains and buses; and the addition of the city’s first passenger rail line.

Jason Blevins of Austin’s Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority clears congestion on his WAN by deploying thin clients.

But without an efficient IT system, the addition of shiny new trains will only go so far. That’s why the agency earmarked nearly one-third of its $34 million fiscal 2008 transit capital budget for IT-related projects. Two such projects were the rollout of new asset-management software for buses and trains, and the switch from desktop PCs to Wyse Technology thin-client devices, says Blevins. Forty of the agency’s 450 workstations are now thin clients, and more are planned.

Other state and city transit operations are modernizing their transit data centers through the use of desktop and server virtualization and thin clients. The Maryland Transit Administration, for example, has added application virtualization software to the scheduling system for its paratransit vehicles and added in-vehicle thin clients to let drivers access the latest pick-up requests. Similarly, the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada will soon deploy application virtualization software and in-vehicle thin clients to deliver scheduling and vehicle-location applications.

Capital Metro deployed the thin client devices to the agency’s maintenance facility and paratransit dispatch group. The devices cost less than $300 each, a savings of about $1,000 per device compared with the desktop PCs they replaced. The switch smoothed out a few bumps, particularly in the maintenance garage where the PCs had been kept under lock and key to prevent theft and damage.

Thin clients are well suited for sooty bus garages, where maintenance workers use the asset-management system to process work orders, look up part numbers and report the status of vehicles under repair. “Dirty fans on PCs would clog up,” says Blevins. “Now, with the thin clients, there are no fans, no moving parts.” About 30 thin clients are deployed in Capital Metro’s bus repair bays, and another 10 or more at parts counters and other maintenance areas.

Another problem that used to plague the agency was that the transportation software kept crashing when it traversed the WAN. While that is not an issue for Capital Metro’s main bus fleet, whose dispatch servers operate from headquarters, it caused headaches for the paratransit dispatchers and call-center agents, who operate from a remote Special Transit Services office 10 miles from agency headquarters.

Blevins solved the problem by rolling out Citrix Systems XenApp, which centralizes applications and data, thus reducing bandwidth demand on the WAN. Each time users connect to the Citrix servers, only mouse movements, keystrokes and screen updates traverse the network. That reduces network bandwidth needs and, in turn, boosts productivity because workers are not waiting on sluggish applications, he says.

XenApp allows Capital Metro to send critical applications reliably over the leased lines that connect five agency buildings and comprise the bulk of its WAN. Call-center agents and dispatchers of paratransit vehicles for riders with disabilities now use XenApp to access transportation software.

The XenApp and Wyse thin-client deployment offers two other advantages, Blevins says. First, when any of the 23 IT staff members needs to update software, the staffer can do so from a central location. Previously, they had to physically change software on each system.

Second, XenApp allows Blevins to limit users to specific applications. So, for example, maintenance workers largely access just the asset-management software, and customer service representatives need only scheduling software. “Most employees are only using one or two applications,” says Blevins. “They don’t use a lot of resources. In fact, most PCs today can be a lot bigger than most people need.”

About 100 Capital Metro employees access centrally hosted software by using XenApp, including a few employees who work remotely from home, at Austin’s University of Texas and at vendor locations.

In other enhancements, the agency deployed VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and Wyse thin clients to gain flexibility in deploying resources. For example, VMware VDI and thin clients let the agency quickly shift the call center from one building to an alternate fail-over site in case of emergency — such as the 2007 avian bird flu scare that shut down city streets for several hours.

The IT group deployed VMware VDI on two servers, creating 40 virtual workstations for the agency’s Special Transit Service offices. While XenApp is used for access to applications, it is VMware that provides the Windows XP OS to the Wyse devices. They also deployed VMware Infrastructure 3 on 10 servers, creating 90 virtual servers. The agency now has 12 physical servers comprising 10 IBM Blades and two HP DL380s hosting 90 virtual servers and 40 virtual workstations. Before February 2007, the agency had only five blade servers and about 60 standalone servers.

Using VMware, Blevins and his IT co-workers can host server and desktop environments inside virtual machines running in the data center. VMware not only helps Blevins quickly set up emergency workstations — downtime for physical hardware problems is minimized by being able to assign a failed server’s resources to another physical server during the repair process — but it makes it easier for him as the agency replaces aging desktop PCs with new thin clients. That’s because new systems can be provisioned in a few clicks of the network administrator’s mouse. “We built 30 in a day,” he says.

Next, Capital Metro will expand thin-client computing and virtualize more desktops and servers.

This spring, about 100 employees were using Citrix XenApp remotely, and 70 of the organization’s 450 workstations were using Wyse thin clients with virtualized desktops via VMware and/or XenApp. “The environment is still growing, and we are working hard to get more things moved over to thin clients with VMware or Citrix,” says Blevins.

Clearly, Capital Metro is on a roll with virtualization. And that should unclog traffic jams on the road and online.