In response to public and social concerns on worldwide energy shortage and environmental protection, the Kourakuen IT Center has planned and renewed its eco-conscious IT infrastructure of the Kourakuen Campus, which is the home of the Faculty of Science and Engineering, Chuo University, Tokyo, Japan.

The system design goal for this project is to build up a system, which can reduce the total cost of the installation, maintenance and specially UTILITY, while keeping the high quality service demands of the campus computer network system (please see the file of Appendix 1). Such demands are to provide 1) first, secure and reliable IT infrastructure for university students, faculties, and staff members; 2) sufficient numbers of client PC workstations with user-friendly Windows/LINUX operating systems for students and instructors at PC classrooms; 3) high performance power server machine for advanced computing researchers; and  4) simple and easy maintenance tools for the center staffs.

Previously there were traditional fat client workstations which are composed by CPU and hard drives in PC classrooms. They had to be continuously run for services day and night. Consequently, the air conditioning for PC classrooms had to be operated for cooling the heat from workstations and the cost of electricity is tremendous. In a new system, the bodies of client workstations are moved from PC classroom to the server room and integrated in blade chassis, so that an efficient and concentrated cooling becomes possible, and students can use the extended workspace on roomy desks in the PC classrooms. Also, students can access expensive PC classroom applications not only from IT center classrooms, but also from off-campus computers though the virtual private network. It is expected to reduce down to two third of the previous electricity cost of the whole system. 

PC classrooms are always busy and crowded for many computer-related classes. For students, it was sometimes difficult to find a seat for their homework and self studies. An E-message service of seat availability will start and students can check vacant seats in the rooms before coming. 

There are several technologies which contribute to achieve our projects objectives as follows,

-Engineering workstation consolidation based on blade technology 
 Over 200 traditional noisy and hot workstations in PC classrooms had been consolidated to blade chassis in the server room with air conditioning. IBM Blade workstation HC10 which is full compatible for windows and Linux applications has been selected. Students and faculty members are able to access to the blade workstations from thin clients in classrooms, but also from remote desktops (RDP) through the campus networks.
On the blade workstation, a VM Ware program runs for serving the dual environments of both Windows and Linux applications on the same workstation. These two operating systems are essential tools for engineering students.
When the trouble happens on a workstation blade, the user connection is automatically switched from the faulty blade to a spare blade without box changing in the PC classroom.

-Server consolidation  
Previously there were many servers which give server service of directory service, Internet access, Learning Management Service and so on. There are issues of server management, service reliability, space and power saving. In this project, servers are consolidated to blade chassis like workstations for improving the reliability and saving space and electricity power. And storages of servers are consolidated to SAN storage. Blade servers are booted from SAN storage which is more reliable than local storages  

-Thin client gives the value of reducing the electricity cost and space.
In PC classrooms, traditional workstations were replaced to newly thin clients. 
IBM CP20 connection devices, placed in classrooms have a powerful graphic chip, that is suitable for engineering applications like 3D CAD. Its small body which contains no CPU, no disk drives and no fans, reduces noise, space, heat and power in the PC classrooms. Instead of the old workstations, additional sub monitors are installed to show instructors learning materials and any videos for intelligible explanation. 

-Rear Door Heat eXchanger (RDHX), a newly air conditioning system which built in server rack have servers cooled more efficiently than standard air conditioning. The consolidation of workstations and servers is very valuable for classroom, on the other hand it has facility issues of the needs of  space and air conditioning power. In our server room there was no space for a new air condition box. RDHX had solved these issues. RDHX are built in the new 4 racks of blade chassis and 
 
-Virtual Private Network gives students the access to IT resources of the Korakuen IT center through the internet from outside of the campus.

Yes

Yes

This project gives the increase of the IT learning opportunity for university students.
The server consolidation of workstations with blade technology can let students to access software programs and files of workstations even from any place other than PC classrooms though the virtual provate networks. Previously it was necessary for students to come to our IT center for homework, programming and writing their papers.  
After the replacement to the new system, the learning style of students could be changed, from class room centered to student centered. Student can use IT resources in any place through the network, so they can have more learning opportunities than before.
About reducing cost and power saving, it is expected that server and workstation consolidation could give the value of saving space, heat and electricity power. One third of electricity power could be down compared to the previous system. We expect that our power saving initiative of the Kourakuen IT Center would bring reputation as the institute with the Green IT Center from other institutes and the public.

In the previous system, for example, the air conditioning is always running day and night for cooling the PC classrooms even in winter nights, because of the heat emission from running workstations. In the newly installed system, we can halt the air conditioners in the PC classrooms when they are not using, especially at nights. This can save the tremendous cost of electricity and safe environment.

Chuo University is one of the leading institutions that have wrestled their ways to the Green IT classroom aimed for power-saving and carbon emission reduction in Japan. The Tokyo Metropolitan government has set an environmental protection guideline for the power-saving and the CO2 reduction to universities, industries and companies in the metropolitan area. This is the top priority task for the Faculty of Science and Engineering, since the faculty is the heaviest utility user. Under this circumstance, the Kourakuen IT Center which is responsible for managing Kourakuen Campus computer networks, campus PC classrooms and high performance power computer servers, has planned and installed a new computer network system. This eco-conscious system will meet the energy saving and CO2 emission reduction up to two third of the previous system, while it satisfies the Facultys high quality demands for education and research.

This project needed about 5 million dollars expense in three years. So there was strong cost reduction pressure from the university financial division, and it was necessary for us to show ROI of this investment.
As mentioned above, the purpose of this project was set as the improvement of the student services, so we had shown the validity of the investment to students that are most important user group of the Kourakuen IT Center. The new service for increasing learning opportunities and improving the environment in PC classrooms could improve the students' satisfaction to the IT services from our IT Center.
In addition, the reduction of the electricity cost by the Green IT contributed as grounds of the validity of the cost, too. It is expected that one third of the electricity cost could be reduced.
These values above helped us to explain the cost justification of this investment to the university financial division.

Why change hardware and software now? Are current software and hardware enough to do our curriculums?
-An IT institute has to give IT service like students have not used at schools and home ever. Keeping advanced IT service keeps our competitiveness to other universities.

Achieved

It is certainly expected that the design way of IT class room for student centered and green should affect to other universities. Because they have same issues like improving student's satisfaction and saving energy cost. 
In fact, when we announced this initiative of the Green IT classroom, a lot of media including two newspapers reported about the value of cost saving and university strategy of public communications.
Most universities are intend to increase IT related devices in campus in order to give IT service to students and faculty menbers. So universities must face severe issues of the IT cost and power saving.
The efficiency of server based computing could help them.

There is a tendency that all universities and institutions don't have enough facility for server room. So If there is a shared center which gives the engineering application services to the universities, more rapidly the institutions use the server base engineering applications without server facility cost.