Mangosuthu Technikon, based in the township of Umlazi near Durban, has deployed an extensive IT solution based on Intel technology to handle all facets of its operation from back-office tasks such as student registration, finance, HR management and e-mail to student teaching applications.
The project took place over a three-year period and was handled by Durban-based Intel Premier Provider, Kelly Le Roux Consulting, which not only supplied six new Intel Xeon processor-based servers and a SAN data storage solution but also refurbished over 300 whitebox PC workstations as well as 30 high-end workstations for CPU and graphics intensive applications such as CAD. The total system costs came in at under R3 million.
Says Pat Kelly of Kelly Le Roux Consulting: "The brief for the technikon project was fairly simple - provide a high-end, high-performance system at a lower cost than using the existing system. The original network utilised two IBM and six Compaq servers to handle admin tasks such as student registration and financials. The choice was to either continue with the branded system or to implement a whitebox solution based on proven, industry-standard Intel technology. The whitebox route proved not only more cost-effective but more robust and reliable."
Six white box servers equipped with dual Intel Xeon processors 2.4GHz were installed to replace the eight older servers. The servers, which run Novel Linux technology, feature 1GB of RAM each, and Intel RAID controller to handle the hard disk RAID - one box with two 36GB SCSI drives and the rest with two 72GB SCSI drives. One of the servers was deployed to handle student registration and another for the institution`s financial system while two operated as backups for each of these servers and the remaining two deployed as e-mail servers. In addition, the network was upgraded to Gigabit EtherNet and an Intel switched backbone.
"Probably the single most important benefit that we achieved with the new servers is its ability to handle more concurrent users than the previous system," says Mangosuthu Technikon`s Julian Thompson. "Traditionally the system was only capable of handling about 15 users at a time. This ultimately proved problematic, particularly during student registration time where the system is required to process and manage the details of more than 10 000 students and the limited processing power led to conflict between users involved in registration and those using the system for academic or HR purposes. As a result we often had to kick users off the network as well as process data in batches after hours and during weekends. The new system can handle anything up to 80 users and still have capacity to spare."
In addition to upgrading the servers, Kelly Le Roux Consulting also refurbished more than 300 of the technikon`s student teaching lab PCs, equipping them with Intel Pentium 4 processor and Intel Celeron processor and motherboards as well as upgrading components such as RAM and hard disks. An additional 30 high-end workstations were also installed for applications such as CAD.
Adds Thompson: "Over and above the huge improvement in performance and availability, we have achieved considerably higher levels of reliability with our IT systems. Our IT department is small with only four people managing the entire network. Greater uptime has translated to lower running costs and losses due to equipment failure. I feel that our decision to move from a proprietary environment simply because we were `comfortable` with it, was the best one. A common platform based on industry standard technology has translated into huge savings both in time and money for the technikon. This factor proved to be important since our budget was limited."
Adds Kelly: "We have maintained a relationship with Mangosuthu Technikon for about 15 years and are happy that they chose to go the Intel route with their IT systems. The tangible benefits they have realised over the deployment period have more than compensated for any doubt they may have had in migrating from their original platform and proves once and for all that the choice of Intel technology was the right one."
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