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Earning high marks with VM and Application as-a-Service for diverse university community
Technology Category
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Hybrid Cloud
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Private Cloud
Applicable Industries
- Education
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
- Human Resources
Use Cases
- Building Automation & Control
- Edge Computing & Edge Intelligence
- Predictive Maintenance
Services
- Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
- System Integration
The Challenge
The large multi-campus state university had a diverse and open IT operations structure, with each college and administrative unit in charge of its local IT needs. A centralized IT services team focused on offering shared access to certain IT services, including hosted private cloud for dozens of groups and hundreds of end users. The university's virtual machine (VM) hosting service had built its own homegrown portal to serve the university. However, due to new IT priorities, the homegrown portal was no longer a key initiative moving forward. This triggered the need to find a new approach for self-service VM hosting and private cloud that was less brittle and easier to maintain. The IT team was ready to get out of the “wrench-turning” business of manually provisioning applications and VMs to university end users, many of whom had non-technical skillsets. These users often needed access to IT services after hours or on weekends and desired a self-service approach to provisioning. It was time to find a way to reduce service ticket volume, centralize hosted VM platforms, and up service delivery.
About The Customer
The customer is a large multi-campus state university with a diverse and open IT operations structure. Each college and administrative unit is in charge of its local IT needs. In addition, a centralized IT services team focuses on offering shared access to certain IT services, including hosted private cloud for dozens of groups and hundreds of end users. The university's IT department had built its own homegrown portal to serve the university. However, due to new IT priorities, the homegrown portal was no longer a key initiative moving forward. This triggered the need to find a new approach for self-service VM hosting and private cloud that was less brittle and easier to maintain.
The Solution
The IT team first connected with Morpheus Data in 2017. Morpheus matched exactly what they were looking for on several fronts. One was value, with Morpheus coming in at the right price point. Speed of integration was another, with Morpheus offering the best integration into vCenter and other out-of-the-box tools. When looking at other available products, the team found that some were too focused on public cloud. Morpheus hybrid cloud management did a better job balancing on-premises and off-premises cloud. Morpheus also provided a better choice of core functions like application lifecycle automation and backup management. Security was a critical factor too. Morpheus provided a dedicated environment for secure data. Government grants require a certain level of security before funds are awarded. Morpheus enabled the IT team to meet the university’s directive to implement a centralized, governed approach to data security controls. Once the decision was made to go with Morpheus, the IT team deployed a proof-of-concept (PoC) in a matter of hours, connecting Morpheus to their VMware environment and leveraging existing Ansible automation. Collaboration and communication with the Morpheus team was fast and easy—using a combination of on-site visits, ticketing, and the Slack platform.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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