ENGINEERING

Dell today unveiled the Dell Campus Architecture, a comprehensive portfolio of offerings to help simplify technology planning for colleges and universities. The goal of the program is to help schools more easily plan, procure, implement and manage their technology across the campus. Based on feedback from higher education customers, the program is designed to help information technology departments address the diverse needs of university students, faculty and administration. "We've identified the key 'pain points' our higher education customers struggle with in managing their complex technology environments," said John Mullen, Dell's vice president of higher education business. "The Dell Campus Architecture is designed to address these areas and make it easier for customers to plan their long-term technology vision, and then make that vision a reality." Dell Campus Architecture addresses four primary technology needs common to most colleges and universities: - Student Computing: With the emergence of "digital dorm rooms" and wireless campuses, technology has become a vital part of student life on campus. Under this program, Dell offers schools a customized student computing program that includes student training and help desk services, delivery and deployment services, a volume-purchasing discount for students, project management and other services to help simplify the process of rolling out and managing these complex projects. - Academic Computing: Industry-standard hardware and software technologies are transforming classrooms into technology-rich learning centers. The Dell Campus Architecture helps universities address this trend with the Dell Intelligent ClassroomTM , a combination of computers and related products such as projectors, wireless networks and AV control systems that together convert the traditional classroom into a high-tech learning environment that engages, involves, and inspires students. - Administrative Computing: Many administrators today want to simplify computing operations to support the goals of the university. Dell's Scalable Enterprise Strategy is designed to enable universities to simplify operations, improve server and storage utilization and scale their costs, while helping to provide a secure network to enable free-flow of information. Through the Dell Campus Architecture, Dell offers its higher education customers services such as network and data security assessment, identity management to prevent unauthorized access to the network, server and storage migration and consolidation, and portals for information sharing across the campus. - Research Computing: High-performance computing clusters have emerged as an important element in university research, particularly in the life sciences. Dell helps universities design, install and maintain their research clusters, from smaller eight- or 16-node clusters to massive clusters with several thousand nodes. For example, the company's merge center in Austin custom builds, tests and ships HPCC systems to ease deployment. The clusters are built, tested, shrink-wrapped on pallets, and shipped on a dedicated truck directly to the university, enabling them to be installed quickly and easily.