Learning any
time, any place,
on any device
Cisco® Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI)
technology enhances Qatar University’s delivery
of optimum teaching and learning, supported by a
new disaster recovery data center.
“Providing services to students and researchers anytime and
anywhere is a key component of our ongoing growth.”
- Trevor Moore, CIO, Qatar University
With a rapidly expanding student population in a fast-growing region, IT must
find ways to accelerate the delivery of educational services while meeting
students’ expectations for e-learning.
• Offer educational services anytime and
anywhere
Challenges
• Establish solid fundamentals to facilitate
institutional growth
• Simplify data center management
Located in Qatar’s capital city of Doha, Qatar University (QU) is the gulf state’s
first national institution of higher education. The organization is committed to
addressing national priorities while providing students with opportunities and
resources to gain knowledge, competencies, and skills that prepare them to
become leaders in the country’s development as they make progress toward a
knowledge-based economy.
The data center provides an optimal digital learning environment, which
enhances students’ academic experiences by giving them the flexibility to
do their best learning at any time of day or night.
Case Study | Qatar University
Size: 17,000 Students
Location: Doha, Qatar
© 2015 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Industry: Education
1
“We are aiming to offer a hybrid learning model that combines traditional and
digital teaching methods,” QU Information Technology Services Department
chief information officer (CIO), Trevor Moore said, adding, “A cloud-based
environment will enable our students and faculty to access resources when
needed, regardless of location or device.”
Added to its expanded student and faculty population, and fast-growing
academic and research portfolio, QU has further advanced its role as the
nation’s research engine. In this regard, the university sought to implement a
flexible and scalable IT platform to support its faculty and student needs and
to provide its community with an optimal anytime, anywhere teaching and
learning environment.
The Cisco ACI technology open environment
provides an infrastructure that enhances
the students’ learning experience and their
personal and professional development.
• Established region’s first SDN data center at QU
Solutions
• Deployed a new state-of-the art, scalable
platform with secure disaster recovery
capabilities
• Centralized the management interface for
network and application services
Facilitating disaster preparedness
“The new data center reinforces our capability to host critical applications
offsite to offset the potential impact of a disaster,” QU Networking and
Telecommunications section head Shuja Ashfaq says. “We are now in a
good position to react to any unforeseen circumstances.”
In addition to giving the university the flexibility
to scale and react to both controlled and
unexpected events, the new data center reduces
the risks by removing unnecessary touch points
and management silos.
“The data center will give us the opportunity to meet the evolving needs
and requirements of the faculty members and to satisfy the needs of the
researchers within the colleges, especially the newly established College of
Medicine,” says Ashfaq. “In addition, we can create more defined security
policies for our various applications in collaboration with Cisco.”
© 2015 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
2
A regional first
The anytime, anywhere facility is accorded optimum support through the data
center, which deploys an SDN architecture, making QU the first educational
institution in the Middle East to possess this network resource. The facility
enriches students’ opportunities to be better engaged in the academic learning
experience and be motivated towards success.
“Providing the underlying infrastructure to support research and development
initiatives is in keeping with the institutional commitment to be a leading
partner in contributing to the country’s vision of becoming a knowledge-based
economy,” Moore said. “This IT foundation is critical to ensure the success
of these initiatives and to contribute to enhancing continuous economic
development of the country.”
Ease of integration and deployment
Cisco ACI technology and F5 Networks technology are deployed at QU to
manage its network and application services from a central management
interface, the Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC).
According to Ashfaq, “From an integration perspective, the data center has
benefited from this technology as it has simplified our operational system.
The seamless integration will enable us to meet the university’s growing
needs in terms of meeting service and security requirements.”
The university has also eliminated IT silos and automated processes that
reduce the provisioning and deprovisioning time from 10 days to 1 day, which
gives students and faculty to access new applications faster and serves to
enhance the teaching-learning experience.
Finding a balance
Cisco ACI provides QU with more granular control over security policies,
while delivering more learning options to its students.
© 2015 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
3
• Enhanced institutional capabilities to meet
current and future needs
Results
• Accelerated application deployment for students
and faculty
• Facilitated data center management
Continuing the journey
The data center also supports QU’s plans to build a private cloud for
researchers to access services on their own. “Cisco ACI technology will
further contribute to streamlining the management of the data center without
the need for additional staff,” says Moore.
To read more Cisco customer stories, visit: http://www.cisco.com/go/
customerstories.
Products & Services
Data Center
• Cisco ACI
• Cisco APIC
• Cisco Nexus® 9000 Series Switches
Security
• Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)
Americas Headquarters
Cisco Systems, Inc.
San Jose, CA
Applications
• Oracle database and Oracle
E-Business Suite
• Microsoft Exchange
• Banner Student Information System
• Blackboard Learning Management
System
• Qatar University website
Asia Pacific Headquarters
Cisco Systems (USA) Pte. Ltd.
Singapore
Europe Headquarters
Cisco Systems International BV Amsterdam,
The Netherlands
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© 2015 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
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