Unleashing IT, Cloud Edition
Volume 4, Issue 3
Reliability translates to superior
technology at Purdue
Cisco and Intel® partnering in innovation
By choosing a simple, reliable cloud communications solution, Purdue University
has improved web collaboration services for students, faculty, and staff.
Purdue University, located in Indiana, is one
of the largest public university systems in
the United States. Its community includes
nearly 75,000 students and just over 5000
faculty members, plus approximately 4000
administrative staff, and 3500 clerical
and support staff. It has six campuses, a
statewide technology program, numerous
extension centers (U.S. and abroad), and
continuing education programs.
With so many people and places to connect
under the Purdue banner, the university
needs a reliable web conferencing system for
its members to collaborate on projects
and research.
Numerous programs and lectures at Purdue
are delivered online, including:
•
Practical nursing tutorials via webcam
•
Agricultural extension programs for
students in Guinea and Columbia
•
The Dean of Engineering’s “fireside
chats” with accepted students before
they arrive as freshmen
But until recently, the university had reliability
issues with its web-conferencing software
because they were using a solution designed
for a different type of environment than its
widespread community of many users. A
deep log of user complaints about bandwidth
and connectivity issues caused Purdue’s
CIO, Gerry McCartney, to investigate better
options. After reviewing six or seven different
solutions, he chose Cisco WebEx®.
“My rule of thumb for rating any widely
used technology is it must work reliably.
Superior products are reliable products,”
McCartney says. “WebEx won out because
it’s a dependable service that people at
Purdue are comfortable using. Most of our
technology users don’t want or need all the
bells and whistles, they just expect the tool
to work when they need it.”
Unleashing IT, Cloud Edition
Reliability translates to superior
technology at Purdue
USING TRUSTED TECHNOLOGY
The telephone is the simplest, most reliable
device to use for talking. But to transmit
information or share data—especially during
group meetings—a web-conferencing
solution like WebEx® is ideal.
During Purdue’s migration period to Cisco
WebEx, the university ran both collaboration
environments to accommodate users who
were in transition. According to McCartney,
people who preferred Purdue’s original
solution for its rich feature set quickly
converted to WebEx because it’s a
reliable product.
“Economists call it ‘revealed preference:’
people will often say they prefer fancy
feature sets but in fact, when you watch their
behavior, they value reliability more,” he says.
“If people see stuff working, they believe
it. When they see it break while it’s doing
something important for them, it makes them
question whether they even need
the technology.”
McCartney believes that if people don’t
adopt the latest collaboration technologies,
it’s because the tools are either too
complicated or too unreliable. User-friendly,
reliable products boost user confidence and
are used more often.
“People don’t want to worry, ‘Do I need a
squad of engineers standing by to make it
work?’ when they go to use communications
technology,” he says. “The first time they
use it and it doesn’t work, they’re far more
inclined to refuse to use it again.”
Volume 4, Issue 3
Cisco and Intel® partnering in innovation
COLLABORATION AT THE CLICK OF A
BUTTON
Cisco’s overall investment in Cloud
architecture—particularly the unified
communications system—was another
deciding factor for WebEx. It made Gerry
McCartney confident that Purdue was getting
a professional, reliable, secure, and scalable
environment to build on.
In fact, the university recently followed up
its WebEx Enterprise Agreement with a
Cisco Unified Communications Enterprise
Agreement. The ultimate vision is to enable
users to collaborate from any device—WebEx,
video, audio—by clicking a single button.
“I see the Cisco Unified Communications
System as the endpoint of a long arc,”
McCartney says. “At some point in the future,
years from now, most hardware on campus
will disappear and everything will be cloud
provided. We’re not sure what the exact
timeline is, but if Cisco can keep it simple and
reliable, they’re going to win.”
LEARN MORE
For additional cloud resources and
guidance, including white papers,
videos, and solution briefs, visit the
Cloud and Cisco Powered™ Managed
Services pages from the Unleashing IT
Resource Center.
This article first appeared in Unleashing IT Volume 4, Issue 3, and online at www.unleashingit.com, available after subscribing at www.unleashingit.com/LogIn.aspx.
© 2015 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco, the Cisco logo, Cisco Powered, and WebEx are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. To view a list of Cisco
trademarks, go to this URL: www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and
any other company. (1110R)
Intel. and the Intel logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries.