Software-Defined Infrastructure Core to Digital Campus Programme & Business Transformation Strategy

Slough, UK, 30 November 2015 – The University of Wolverhampton has awarded a £1.3m contract to Logicalis UK, the international IT solutions and managed services provider, for the design and build of a software-defined compute, storage and virtualisation infrastructure to underpin the Digital Platforms Project, part of the University’s Digital Campus Transformation Programme. The platform – architected using Hewlett Packard Enterprise and VMware technologies – is a foundation project of the University’s digital transformation of services, resources and information to students and staff. The IT platform will also contribute significantly to the success of the University’s five-year £250m investment strategy.

“Logicalis is creating a highly automated and agile digital platform that will allow the University to adapt to market forces, and enable business transformation. This means scaling and delivering new services on-demand whilst remaining attractive to businesses seeking research partners, and students seeking the best quality of higher education,” says Dean Harris, Assistant Director ICT Infrastructure, adding, “the foundation has to be right, so that everything else aligns perfectly.”

Harris explains, “Members of our University community are voracious consumers of digital content, and consequently we have to evolve our culture and processes to remain competitive. Creating more opportunities to learn via interesting, relevant tools can help broaden and challenge the learning of students, and this is where we, the Directorate of Academic Support, can have the greatest impact on our students’ future.

“Logicalis’ platform gives us the opportunity to behave like an internal service provider, to build a portfolio of services tailored to the diverse needs of the University community, quickly and without adding operational complexity on the IT team. Being able to offer service choice but still maintain control is exciting. It’s a chance for IT to make a difference, to enable the University’s vision.”

Logicalis’ platform architecture approach, known as ‘IT by Wire’, provides a five-layer Software Defined stack that, for the University of Wolverhampton, blends infrastructure (HPE Hyper Convergence), virtualisation (VMware), automation (HPE OneView, HPE Helion), cloud integration and instrumentation (HPE Virtual Performance Viewer). The software-defined architecture helps organisations to automate the provisioning, control, management, and cost of IT services at speed, shifting department focus from operational fix to policy-driven decision-making in line with an internal service provider model.

Chris Gabriel, CTO at Logicalis UK, adds; “IT by Wire is designed to enable IT to deliver new services at the speed of business. For the University of Wolverhampton, this means shape shifting to meet the evolving needs and expectations of digitally immersed students, as well as supporting the University’s planned investment and adapting to whatever new opportunity or challenge is around the corner.”