Hong Kong Baptist University saves on manpower, improves systems efficiency with IBM 'True Blue' approach

Overview

The Challenge
The Hong Kong Baptist University's Information Systems Section (ISS) wanted to save on manpower while improving system performance and reliability, streamline manageability, eliminate storage concerns, and improve backup and recovery.

The Solution
ISS over the years moved to an IBM-only hardware infrastructure with investments in the IBM eServer pSeries™ systems and a Storage Area Network (SAN) empowered by the IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server ®.

The Benefits
The ‘True Blue’ infrastructure gave ISS tight integration for better manageability and resources utilisation, while saving on manpower and adding flexibility for the implementation of future applications.

Founded in 1956, the Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) is today an autonomous and publicly-funded university that enrolls more than 8,000 students. Committed to the provision of 'whole person' education, the University offers undergraduate and postgraduate courses in arts, business, science and social sciences, and professional courses in Chinese medicine, business, communication and education. The University looks to train each student for the rigours and demands of the world.

Information Systems Section (ISS) was established to provide management information to the senior management of the University for decision making, developing and supporting mission-critical applications for student registration and study progress information, human resource management, and finance management. In addition, ISS oversees the installation and maintenance of an IT infrastructure to the support information systems it develops.

Since its early inception, ISS relied on IBM's hardware to power its applications. So when ISS moved to a modern client-server environment, IBM was again one of the vendors chosen to provide the necessary hardware.

"The major factors we looked for was reliability, customer support, security and systems performance," said Jennifer S Y Lau, Head of ISS, at HKBU.

After an extensive search which included presentations from several vendors, ISS bought its first AIX-based IBM server for systems development.

"We chose IBM based on the price performance and reliability, and it was the first AIX server we had," said Ms Lau.

Since then, ISS had brought two more AIX-based IBM servers for user-acceptance testing and for production run. The IBM servers met all of the ISS requirements at that time.

When ISS began developing Web-based Java applications, it tried to bring in another hardware brand. However, the vendor's abysmal customer support and relatively short product life cycle did not live up to ISS' initial expectations. This drove Ms Lau and her team to look for another server to meet their needs. They finally chose IBM eServer pSeries 650 in July 2004.

IBM eServer pSeries is driven by POWER4+ microprocessors with an enhanced "SMP-on-a-chip" design that uses two high-speed processors in a single chip module. This significantly improves performance scalability and offers exceptional configuration flexibility to meet unexpected growth¡Vfeatures that ISS was looking for.

At the same time, the IBM pSeries 650 adopts several innovations from IBM autonomic computing initiative that freed ISS from laborious maintenance tasks. Instead, with the new server onboard, ISS could now devote more resources and effort to value-adding tasks.

The deployment of IBM eServer pSeries 650 also turned the entire ISS server infrastructure into an IBM-only or 'True Blue' server environment, which provided further benefits to ISS.

Storage and data recovery were also high on ISS' agenda in the last few years. Two years ago, ISS was carrying out a balancing act trying to administer and manage a myriad of systems that led to data management headaches.

"We had a problem in that the amount of hardware was increasing," said Ms Lau. Increasing hardware stretched ISS in reining in data management while maintaining the servers. Likewise, backup and recovery also took up precious man hours, and Ms Lau did not have the resources to expand her systems operation team to cater for the increased workload.

ISS therefore started to search for a storage and recovery solution. After looking at the available options for nine months, they decided to implement a Storage Area Network (SAN) that scores high on security, performance and availability. In the end, they chose IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server 800, or Shark, and implemented it in December 2002.

"Since then, it has performed well for us, eliminated undue workload from my team, and made backing up and system maintenance much easier," said Ms Lau.

Best of all, the new Shark cut the data downtime to zero ¡V a fact that certainly impressed Ms Lau and her team.

Becoming a 'True Blue' customer where all the hardware solutions are from IBM furnished Ms Lau with many benefits.

One of the first things Ms Lau noticed when switching to a 'True Blue' infrastructure was the tight integration between the different IBM hardware, which in turn led to better resource management. For example, when a database server goes down, ISS is now able to use available IBM AIX servers to mount the database.

"When there is any emergency, we can use our internal resources to do some flexible testing. It is now more convenient to us," said Ms Lau.

This allows ISS to fully utilise their available resources optimally ¡V a benefit that saves ISS money and precious man hours.

"The flexibility and scalability that comes with a ¡¥True Blue' architecture also allows us to become more efficient and meet rising user demands," said Ms Lau.

Manpower needs were also curtailed with the new infrastructure. Currently, ISS only has a slim team of three persons managing the SAN, six servers for development, user acceptance testing and production, twelve middle-tier servers and eight internal servers. The small team also doubles up as a help desk.

"With a one-vendor architecture, the operation team could perform diagnosis better and faster," said Ms Lau.

The 'True Blue' infrastructure helps Ms Lau maintain her headcount without affecting the systems performance while streamlining her staff's tasks for better productivity.

Excellent support is another key factor for Ms Lau's ongoing faith in IBM hardware, especially when installing the SAN infrastructure.

"I think the systems integrator (SI) did a very good job in the presales portion. They were very technical professionals who understood all our concerns, solved all our issues and were backed by a strong company like IBM," said Ms Lau.

She added that the implementation team's pragmatic approach to the project and spelling out the expectations and limitations right at the beginning impressed her the most.

"I think faith is a very important element in this project, since we did not have any experience. We relied on the SI and the hardware vendor to provide us with professional service in order to implement the solution successfully," she said.

With a 'True Blue' infrastructure providing the backbone, Ms Lau is very satisfied with the current implementation, and feels that her expectations have been met.

"We are looking forward to the introduction of a series of new applications, and Portal is among the key priorities in the coming two years. Without a manageable infrastructure that we now have, this would not have been easy as we would have needed to increase the number of staff," said Ms Lau. "Even if I was given a second chance, I would choose the same solutions."