Huawei’s Hybrid Cloud Solution Drives KMUTT Digital Transformation

Background: Supporting KMUTT in the Transformation of its IT Infrastructure

King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT), was established in February 1960. In March 1998, it became the first public university in Thailand to receive full autonomy in terms of financial management, human resource management and academic programs.

Based on The World University Rankings, KMUTT came 1st in Thailand three years in a row (2018, 2019 and 2020) for Engineering and Technology. With a population of over 16,000 students, it enjoys a strong reputation all over the Asia-Pacific region. Its main areas of expertise cover Architecture, Bioresources, Digital, Energy, Engineering, Environment, Linguistics, Science and Technology.

Determined to remain a top university with a prominent role in technology and research, KMUTT aims to provide quality teaching & learning, research, and academic services that can enhance Thailand’s economic development and quality of life.

Customer Requirements and Challenges: Deploying a Centralized and Cost-Effective Cloud System

In line with the university management’s vision to become a “Connected KMUTT” through digital transformation, KMUTT needed to enhance its wireless network and migrate its IT infrastructure to a unified and centralized Hybrid Cloud platform.

Previously, each faculty had separate IT services and applications, resulting in high operation expenses (OPEX) and maintenance costs. To answer these challenges, KMUTT needed to ensure:

• A more secure and reliable wireless network system, including Core Switch, Distribution Switch, Access Switch and Access Points
• The deployment of a Software Defined Network (SDN) to support the system administration
• A unified hardware and software licensing and update management
• A System Backup and Disaster Recovery (DR)
• Adequate Internet coverage in high-density areas at all times
• An Auto-Scaling (AS) computing system to adapt to diverse usage demand

Solution: Installing Huawei Cloud Campus Solution

Huawei proposed its Cloud Campus Solution with the objective to improve connection efficiency among all campuses and faculties. It provided KMUTT with an OpenStack-based cloud data center network. The new wireless network encompasses a series of improvements:

• 400 Gbps connection in the data center and high-speed connection with advanced features between the Core Switches and Distribution Switches, allowing a wireless connection speed of 3.46 Gbps per Access Point.
• The new-generation Access Points can automatically track each user without the intervention of the University’s IT staff
• Next Generation Firewall to enhance efficiency & security
• Centralized management and monitoring system using Huawei’s Software Defined Network (SDN)

The Hybrid Cloud platform results in optimized storage and cost-effective network management for faculty members, staff and students. It means a safer and more reliable platform for all. It also enables auto-scaling capacity, resulting in cost optimization.

Customer Benefits

Huawei’s Cloud Campus Solution enables KMUTT to provide faster wired and wireless high-quality connection all around the campus, with increased usage security. The new IT infrastructure plays an instrumental role in supporting the university’s high educational and research objectives. It also answers the demand of KMUTT’s executive management in terms of speed, security and back office operations.

Thanks to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), most network management operations are automatically processed in the cloud portal, which helps reduce manual operations and human errors.

With Huawei Hybrid Cloud’s virtual resource pool, it is much easier to control, monitor and forecast the resources, thanks to the ability to customize the number of CPUs, memory size and networks to fit the university’s needs. Huawei Hybrid Cloud solution safely stores data and efficiently prevents data loss, minimizing long-term capital expenditures (CAPEX).