Jonathan Tse, systems analyst of Information Technology Unit, Open University of Hong Kong (right) with NetApp's technical experts.
HONG KONG, 19 MARCH 2009 – The Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK) has deployed NetApp’s FAS3140 storage solution to support the rollout of its Centre for Innovation (CFI) initiative.
The advanced unified storage system, combined with management software tools, provides a best-of-breed storage and virtualisation platform that allows OUHK to implement new intelligent learning programmes.
Since its first inception in 1989, OUHK has been offering high quality and flexible tertiary education to more than 150,000 people.
Information highway system
To boost educational effectiveness and better prepare its students for the ever-changing business environment, the OUHK has rolled out a three-year CFI initiative that serves as a virtual central mechanism to coordinate and implement OUHK’s innovative learning projects.
These projects aim to blend the strengths of distance learning, classroom teaching and online learning to enrich education. The storage solution will support a 24/7 knowledge-based information highway system for information dissemination and communication and e-learning initiatives that will improve academic practices.
These include a next-generation ‘Intelligent Flexible Learning Model for Open Learning’ featuring key components such as an intelligent tutoring system, an intelligent student counselling system and an integrated student support system.
Centre for Innovation
The CFI has three principal responsibilities: (1) To research the innovative use of emerging technologies, advanced applications and improved educational practices to assess their feasibility and applicability in the OUHK environment. (2) Develop innovative practices by applying mature and proven technologies to enhance academic offerings and operations, and optimise student learning processes and administrative efficiencies. (3) Implement technologies and pedagogies known to be useful to educational delivery but not yet deployed due to resource and time constraints.
“The Centre for Innovation will be able to facilitate the conversion of innovative ideas into feasible projects that will help OUHK to develop the infrastructure needed for modern e-learning,” said Jonathan Tse, systems analyst, Information Technology Unit, Open University of Hong Kong. “To support the initiative and data generated by its 600 staff and 17,000 students, OUHK realised it would need to optimise its data centre operation with new virtualisation technologies and achieve the ‘beyond five nines’ uptime goal with new remote disaster recovery architecture.”
Thin provisioning and de-duplication
The FAS3140 system running Data ONTAP 7G, integrates all the necessary storage functions into a single box, consolidating diverse data sets onto a unified storage platform for central management. It enables virtual machine mobility and offloading the work of data protection at OUHK’s data centre. Thin provisioning and frontline de-duplication technology helps eliminate stranded and redundant storage.
“We've dramatically improved our storage utilisation, reducing the consumption of raw storage, power and cooling. Virtualisation technology has reduced our physical storage space by 20 times and we now have a total of 44 Terabytes stored on the new system,” said Tse.
NetApp Snapshot point-in-time copy technology reduces backup time to minutes; SnapRestore recovers point in-time data and SnapManager, which supports Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint and Virtual Infrastructure, quickly returns applications to the same point in time as recovered data. To reinforce this unique RAID-DP technology safeguards the university’s data from double-disk failure ensuring the efficient operation and the high availability of data.
