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IT infrastructure optimization for education from IBM
Executive summary Business view Technical details
The goal
Better utilization of IT
Are you feeling pressure to reduce IT spending on infrastructure projects, support and maintenance so you can focus on applications that directly contribute to student achievement and effective operations? Do your faculty and students find collaboration difficult because your systems don’t work with each other? Does your current IT environment inhibit you from increasing student, teacher, faculty or administrator services? Consider optimizing your IT environment. We can help your institution consolidate, eliminate, automate, upgrade and outsource.

The advantage
Blend educational insight and technology innovation
Take advantage of the breadth and depth of IBM education industry experience and technology leadership to help you stretch your budget. Our extensive skill set enables us to:
  • Assess your environment, design and deliver custom solutions with a proven track record of success.
  • Offer you best-in-class wireless and wired technologies, including new converged networking solutions like Voice over IP.
  • Provide a full suite of services, including infrastructure integration and Web hosting, along with leading hardware and software products—all with one single point of contact throughout solution implementation.
  • Bring experienced team members and seasoned project managers to the table with advanced methodologies to complete solutions on time and on budget.

We’ve been pioneers in the education industry, with:
  • IBM Learning Alignment, serving students, teachers and administrators through aligning initiatives with student outcomes.
  • Our active collaboration with schools in the Reinventing Education grant program and with higher education in the Shared University Research grants, faculty loan and other programs.
  • Leadership in consulting and the use of Service Oriented Architecture and Open Source applications for education.
  • IBM partnerships with leading industry groups, such as the Consortium for School Networking, EDUCAUSE, Kuali, and Sakai, as well as sponsorship of the three National Education Summits.

The benefits
Rapidly respond to educational challenges
Align IT resources with your institution’s objectives by consolidating, simplifying and improving systems management. Improve resource utilization and flexibility by applying automation, virtualization and provisioning to balance demand fluctuations. We can help you:
  • Increase focus on student achievement and accountability by driving investments in resources that directly support your objectives.
  • Meet students’, teachers’, faculty’s and administrators’ heightened expectations for technology use, 24x7 availability and integration by providing wide support for emerging wireless devices and leveraging Internet technologies.
  • Standardize and centralize systems to accommodate varying levels of demand in different areas of the campus, even across town.
  • Facilitate real-time decision making with visibility across departments, schools and suppliers by integrating disparate systems and consolidating data sources.

The approach
Case study: Canyon Independent School District
Challenge: Increase network bandwidth to improve speed; provide students and teachers with equal access to a standardized, versatile, pervasive computing environment; upgrade phone system.

Solution: A high-bandwidth wireless WAN; converged network over wireless, including voice and data and enabling server consolidation; IBM ThinkPad® à la Carte implementation; replacing existing phone service with new Voice over IP system.

Why IBM? IBM had a long-term relationship with the district and a reputation for delivering fresh thinking, stellar project management and the ability to meet or beat project deadlines while saving money for the client.

Key benefits: Increased bandwidth between schools; improved phone services; enhanced access to technology for students; reduced costs and time to install.

The financial advantage
Enrollment growth with cost containment
With your budgets flat or even shrinking, we can help you leverage your resources so you can build or maintain the educational technologies that support your vision and goals. Our approach is designed to help:
  • Improve operating efficiencies and staff effectiveness.
  • Raise the utilization of existing assets so upgrade expenses can be deferred.
  • Rapidly respond to changing educational priorities and growing enrollments.
  • Deploy standard applications and systems quickly and efficiently to meet students, faculty and staff demands faster.
  • Integrate new custom applications and systems into your existing environment with ease.

Next steps
 
Questions about this solution? Contact an IBM Education specialist.