Belfast cloud computing company Novosco has been appointed to deploy a Cisco-based virtualised data centre infrastructure at Queen’s University Belfast.
The project represents the first major V-Block deployment throughout the Higher Education sector in the UK and Ireland.
Built on Cisco’s Unified Computing System, the new virtualised infrastructure will facilitate significantly greater numbers of virtual machines on the same piece of hardware. Cisco UCS offers centralised management over the computer, networking and storage elements needed to deploy virtual ICT infrastructures.
This “wire once, walk away” approach will help address the power management targets within the university’s data centres.
The flexibility of the VCE approach within QUB will also afford management greater control over the support and management of the environment, with the potential for new and improved innovations delivered to an increasingly sophisticated end user base.
“QUB’s approach to the next-generation data centre is instrumental in helping it remain one of the most innovative higher education providers in Ireland,” John Lennon, sales director for Novosco, said.
“Giving staff and students a better ICT experience within existing financial and resourcing commitments will ensure that this competitive edge is maintained,” Lennon added.
Future investments in the platform will also be significantly less than additions to physical environments, all of which future proofs QUB’s investment. Novosco’s Data Centre Architecture Solutions’ Practice is underpinned by the VCE “DataCentre 3.0” vision.
This approach, allied with EMC storage, Cisco’s UCS and VMware’s VSphere Cloud Operating System allows QUB the potential to optimise data centre resources with increased flexibility compared to traditional hardware-based solutions.
Founded in 1845, Queen’s University Belfast has been providing higher education to students from around the world. Currently, it caters for more than 17,000 students and 3,500 staff, with some 100,000 alumni graduates worldwide.
“Novosco’s experience in delivering enterprise-scale virtualisation environments, along with their strong relationships with each of the VCE technology partners, made them an easy choice to deliver V-Block into the University’s Data Centres,” said Jim Cunningham, assistant director for Information Systems at Queen’s.
Photo: Jim Cunningham, assistant director of Information Services, Queen’s University Belfast, John Lennon, sales director, Novosco
