KMUTT's Digital Transformation Driven by Huawei's Hybrid Cloud Solution
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Located in the bustling capital of Thailand, King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT) was established in February 1960. After nearly four decades of operating under the Ministry of Education, in March 1998, it became the first public university in Thailand to receive full autonomy in terms of financial management, human resources management, and academic programs.
According to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings by Subject: Engineering and Technology, KMUTT has been the number one university in Thailand for three years in a row, in 2018, 2019, and 2020. And with over 16,000 students currently enrolled, it boasts a strong reputation across the entire Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. As a leading university in the region, KMUTT offers a wide variety of courses, with its main areas of expertise covering everything from architecture, bio resources, digital operations, thermodynamics, and engineering, to environmental science, linguistics, science, and technology.
Determined to retain its position and play a prominent role developing technology and promoting research, KMUTT is committed to providing the highest quality of teaching and learning, covering research and other academic services as well, in turn enhancing Thailand's economic development and the quality of life for its residents.
In line with the university management's vision to become "Connected KMUTT," the university needed to embrace digital transformation and upgrade its wireless network, migrating Information Technology (IT) infrastructure to a unified and centralized hybrid cloud platform.
Legacy IT services and applications varied across faculties, resulting in high Operations Expenditure (OPEX) and spiraling maintenance costs. To address these challenges head on, KMUTT needed to take a series of steps.
First, a more secure and reliable wireless network system was needed, including core, distribution, and access switches, alongside new Access Points (APs). Software-Defined Networking (SDN) would also help to support system administration. And to ensure departments remained on the same page, unified hardware and software licensing needed to be implemented, with management updated accordingly. In addition, a system backup and Disaster Recovery (DR) solution would ensure data security. Finally, an Auto-Scaling (AS) computing system needed to go online to adapt to diverse access demand and provide adequate Internet coverage in high-density areas at all times.
Huawei proposed its CloudCampus Solution with the objective to improve connection efficiency across faculties and campuses. It provided KMUTT with an OpenStack-based cloud data center network, which has resulted in a wide range of improvements.
Connection speeds of 400 Gbit/s have now been achieved in the data center, with high speed connections between core and distribution switches. With connection speeds up to 3.46 Gbit/s per AP, the new APs also track user movements to provide reliable network access on the move. In terms of security, a next generation firewall has been implemented to enhance efficiency, with management and monitoring now centralized with Huawei SDN.
In short, a hybrid cloud platform has optimized storage and network management, resulting in a safer and more reliable platform for faculty members, staff, and students alike. And with auto-scaling capacity enabled, costs are kept as low as possible.
Huawei's CloudCampus Solution allows KMUTT to enjoy faster wired and wireless connections across campus, with enhanced security features. This new IT infrastructure is now playing an instrumental role in supporting the university's education and research objectives, meeting the expectations of the university's leadership in terms of speed, security, and back office operations.
Thanks to an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) model, most network management operations are now automatically processed in a cloud portal, reducing manual operations and human error.
And with Huawei Hybrid Cloud’s virtual resource pool, it is much easier to control, monitor, and prepare resources, thanks to the ability to customize the number of Central Processing Units (CPUs), disk size, and networks to fit the university's needs. The solution also safely stores data and efficiently prevents data loss, minimizing long-term Capital Expenditure (CAPEX).
