University of Maryland University College (UMUC) Case Study
Company Size
1,000+
Region
- America
Country
- United States
Product
- Zenoss as a Service (ZaaS)
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Tech Stack
- Linux
- Windows servers
- Cisco UCS
- Cisco networking
- Virtualized storage devices
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Cost Savings
- Productivity Improvements
Technology Category
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Connectivity Platforms
Applicable Industries
- Education
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
Services
- Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
- System Integration
About The Customer
University of Maryland University College (UMUC) is a premier distance learning institution that services 95,000 students worldwide. The institution had five data centers across three continents, which hosted all distance learning IT infrastructure. The institution's IT infrastructure was used in massive, regular surges by students, such as Sunday nights just before weekly homework or testing deadlines, or at the end of grading periods. This led to capacity issues with UMUC’s legacy learning management system (LMS) and an array of third-party applications. In addition to these, UMUC had additional internal systems supporting everything from document management to human capital management.
The Challenge
University of Maryland University College (UMUC) is a premier distance learning institution servicing 95,000 students worldwide. They had five data centers on three continents with approximately 1,500 hardware systems in operation. Because students tended to use the systems in massive, regular surges, there were capacity issues with UMUC’s legacy learning management system (LMS) and an array of third-party applications. With additional internal systems supporting everything from document management to human capital management, UMUC had a clear need for a unified monitoring platform. UMUC lacked visibility into issues that were affecting end users, so the UMUC IT staff was completely unaware of service interruptions in many cases. Once aware, they still had difficulty identifying the exact points in the infrastructure where the issues were occurring.
The Solution
In 2012, UMUC adopted a new cloud-first IT strategy, which included first adopting SaaS technologies from vendors and then transitioning infrastructure in their own global data centers to AWS, leaving only essential infrastructure components on premises. To scale IT operations, unify monitoring, and achieve a smoother cloud transition, and user experience, UMUC decided to adopt Zenoss-as-a-Service (ZaaS), the cloud-hosted version of Zenoss Service Dynamics. ZaaS provided unified performance and availability monitoring and event management for UMUC’s entire IT infrastructure. UMUC has been able to migrate 97 percent of their physical infrastructure to AWS. Their use of ZaaS helped ensure seamless operations before, during and after the transition to the cloud. ZaaS allowed UMUC to continually monitor the health of their hybrid infrastructure and move data collectors around as needed throughout the process.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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