National Award Recognises Hybrid Cloud at Loughborough University

Slough, UK: 3rd July 2012: International services provider, Logicalis UK, is pleased to congratulate its customer, Loughborough University on winning the ICT Initiative of the Year award at the Times Higher Education Leadership and Management Awards, for its implementation of hybrid Cloud.

Now in their fourth year, the Times Higher Education Leadership and Management Awards aim to celebrate the sector’s leadership, management, financial and business skills. They showcase the extraordinary innovation, teamwork and commercial acumen of UK higher education institutions.

Three years ago, Loughborough University was facing a choice between the cost of refurbishing its 40-year-old data centre and the risks involved in moving its IT capacity to external ‘Clouds’. Instead it decided to devise a hybrid approach. Working in close conjunction with ICT partner Logicalis UK Ltd, the University introduced a pioneering new system, which consisted of local clouds based at mini-pods at opposite ends of the campus.

Leveraging Logicalis’ industry leading innovation in cloud infrastructure and its connection into JANET, the initiative has yielded the University estimated savings of around £3million. More than 200 university servers now run on the local cloud, saving more than £500,000 in IT revenue costs to date. The University’s power costs have also fallen by £100,000 and its annual carbon output has been reduced by 600 tonnes.

One of the judges, Chris Cobb, chief operating officer and university secretary at the University of London, said Loughborough had met a challenge that many universities face. “The hybrid cloud extends the life of existing infrastructure while at the same time enabling a transition towards full Cloud-based hosting,” he said.

Loughborough’s award was collected at the ceremony by Phil Richards, the University’s Director of IT: “It was a privilege to collect the award on behalf of everyone who has contributed to the initiative. We now have an agile IT platform to take Loughborough through the interesting times that lie ahead. We are pleased the judges recognised the wider applicability of our innovative hybrid Cloud approach.”

Tom Kelly, Managing Director of Logicalis UK, comments, “The project at Loughborough has created a totally new IT provisioning model for Cloud. We’re proud to have contributed to Loughborough’s ICT success, and it is great to see the University’s innovative work recognised with this award.”

Logicalis Cloud solutions are based on Cisco and NetApp Flexpod architecture, a prevalidated data centre solution built on a flexible, shared infrastructure. For more information on Loughborough University’s initiative, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnV95ygRtxs&feature=relmfu

The ICT Initiative of the Year award was sponsored by SMART Technologies, a leading provider of collaboration solutions that transform the way the world works and learns.