ACADEMIA

IBM announced that The Sunan Kalijaga Islamic State University (UIN) Yogyakarta has adopted IBM's smarter computing approach to IT to improve the quality of the education process through highly collaborative learning services.

Founded in 1951, UIN is one of the leading private universities in Central Java with a student population of more than 15,000 from across Indonesia. To keep pace with the growing demands of the academic community – which is the heart of nation's competitive engine – UIN turned to IBM Global Technology Services to build a smarter computing infrastructure. The technical goals were to streamline learning processes, improve the economics of the administration system and increase overall computing and data storage utilization.

"We have been working on ways to increase the university’s quality and involvement in solving the nation's problems through scientific approaches and advanced technologies for a number of years," said Agung Fatwanto, Head of IT Department, at Sunan Kalijaga Islamic State University. “With this project we wanted to simplify our IT environment and at the same time enable it to provide learning and administrative services in a combined and collaborative manner, sharing processes and technology within the campus and online.”

At the heart of the new infrastructure are IBM’s high performance IBM BladeCenter server systems and IBM Storwize V7000 Unified Storage Systems, all integrated with the university’s existing infrastructure through integration services from IBM Global Technology Services.

Designed with high-powered, efficient, yet small footprint blade servers, the IBM BladeCenter system offers greater energy efficiencies and takes up less floor space than traditional server systems. IBM storage solutions like IBM Storwize V7000 help customers free up shrinking IT budgets through automation, storage virtualization, and cloud-based storage while effectively managing data growth.

In addition, the V7000’s IBM System Storage Easy Tier technology helps optimize system efficiency by automatically placing data at the most strategic storage level. For example, more commonly used data is automatically and dynamically placed on built-in Solid State Drives for fast access, while less frequently accessed data is placed on more cost-effective storage systems – all without disruption to applications.

IBM GTS's Networking, Site and Facilities Services focus on designing, implementing and managing networking and application environments optimized for integrated business communications, a necessity in a large campus like UIN's Sunan Kalijaga.

One of the early byproducts of the new infrastructure is UIN’s first e-learning curricula for selected science, technology and science education subjects, which was rolled out at the beginning of 2012. The technologies have also helped the university more effectively manage dramatic peaks in utilization, during such times as registration of new students, course enrolment, exam schedule postings, grades posting and graduation enrolment – all times when students access the system in droves.

The new IT infrastructure has also improved UIN's administrative capacity by enabling students to register online without glitches or delays. As online activity increased another hot issue for university management was relieved – limited on-campus parking and study room availability.

“From New York to Jakarta to Beijing, education is the engine of economic growth,” said Fetra Syahbana, Country Manager, Systems & Technology Group, IBM Indonesia. “Whether we are talking about  transportation systems, smarter cities or green energy, the discussion should always begin with education. IBM’s smarter computing approach to IT is helping UIN Yogyakarta realize greater efficiencies, improved reliability and better performance, all at a lower cost. We strongly believe that this project will support UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta in enhancing the experience it offers its student and faculty population."