Zenoss Case Studies University of Maryland University College (UMUC) Case Study

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	University of Maryland University College (UMUC) Case Study Zenoss

University of Maryland University College (UMUC) Case Study

Zenoss

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
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. Read More
About 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. Read More
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. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

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

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.

About 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.

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.

Impact #1	ZaaS allowed the IT staff to better understand system interdependencies, which helped eliminate redundant equipment and significantly reducing unnecessary labor and repair costs.
Impact #2	UMUC has leveraged Zenoss’ Service Impact features to build out models of their cloud-hosted sales and marketing, administrative, and academic applications, such as their student-facing portal.
Impact #3	These service impact views are in the main ZaaS dashboard that UMUC uses on a daily basis to track up-to-date application health and to understand what infrastructure events truly pose service risks.

Impact #1

ZaaS allowed the IT staff to better understand system interdependencies, which helped eliminate redundant equipment and significantly reducing unnecessary labor and repair costs.

Impact #2

UMUC has leveraged Zenoss’ Service Impact features to build out models of their cloud-hosted sales and marketing, administrative, and academic applications, such as their student-facing portal.

Impact #3

These service impact views are in the main ZaaS dashboard that UMUC uses on a daily basis to track up-to-date application health and to understand what infrastructure events truly pose service risks.

Benefit #1	UMUC has been able to migrate 97 percent of their physical infrastructure to AWS.
Benefit #2	Only 1 engineer needed to implement solution
Benefit #3	Consolidated 5 tools

Benefit #1

UMUC has been able to migrate 97 percent of their physical infrastructure to AWS.

Benefit #2

Only 1 engineer needed to implement solution

Benefit #3

Consolidated 5 tools

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Overview

University of Maryland University College (UMUC) Case Study

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit