Coppin State University (CSU) is a historically black comprehensive, model urban, four-year University. CSU offers 23 undergraduate majors and 10 graduate-degree majors in liberal arts, sciences, business, education, and nursing. Located in the northwest section of Baltimore, CSU has a unique mission, primarily focusing on the problems, needs, and aspirations of urban communitiesspecifically Baltimore City residents and the immediate metropolitan area. 

CSU immerses its students in a technology rich environment to prepare them for the market placeleveraging technology to make learning and program administration more effective and to contribute academic achievement models to the city, state, and nation. The IT team is challenged with addressing technology needs within its limited financial resources.

CSUs storage solution was impeding the Universitys ability to serve the needs of its student population. With the existing storage infrastructure was easy to set up and maintain, but it couldnt handle the performance demands of the universitys PeopleSoft ERP system that serves as the backbone of the university. The entire faculty, staff, and student population depends on the ERP system for admissions and administration, payroll and financials, human resources, web access, and so on. The IT team encountered serious performance issues that impacted both production and dev/test. Students often couldnt log in, the SQL database administrators had to micro-manage data storage to maintain performance, and developers lost valuable time in their delivery schedules. The storage infrastructure was also limiting the Universitys ability to expand its popular class capture system that enables students to attend class anytime, anywhere.

To address these issues, the Coppin IT team outlined six critical needs for a new storage solution: 
	improve performance to deliver responsive PeopleSoft and Microsoft Exchange e-mail services;
	complement the universitys expanding VMware environment; 
	improve capacity utilization to support data growth within current financial constraints; 
	ensure availability and streamline backup/recovery processes; 
	enable compliance with state-mandated disaster recovery and business-continuance requirements; 
	simplify storage administration to reduce costs.

CSU has a unique mission, primarily focusing on the problems, needs, and aspirations of urban communities and leverage technology to prepare students for the workforce. This new storage and virtualized server infrastructure enables CSU to meet this mission by improving performance and availability of mission-critical applications like Exchange and reducing IT costs so that money that would have otherwise been spent on infrastructure technologies can be spent on technologies that have a direct impact on the Universitys learning environment and the ultimate success of CSUs graduates. Specific benefits include: 

	Improved PeopleSoft and Exchange performance
	Maintenance of 24x7 availability
	Fast backups and within-4-hour disaster recovery 
	Reduced admin costs by 67%
	Conserved data center space, cooling, and power

CSU recently overhauled its entire storage infrastructure. The universitys challenge was to minimize costs while implementing storage for mission-critical applications, VMware, and disaster recovery. Several years ago CSU deployed a storage solution from EMC. Although it met its performance requirements, it proved too difficult to manage in-house. Scaling the system and implementing a local disaster recovery solution required engagement of consulting services that proved to be both disruptive and expensive. 

The IT team then moved to a more manageable LeftHand Networks solution for its next generation of storage. The system was easy to set up and maintain, but it couldnt handle the performance demands of the universitys PeopleSoft ERP system that serves as the backbone of the university. The entire faculty, staff, and student population depends on the system for admissions and administration, payroll and financials, human resources, web access, and so on. The IT team encountered serious performance issues that impacted both production and dev/test. Students often couldnt log in, the SQL database administrators had to micro-manage data storage to maintain performance, and developers lost valuable time in their delivery schedules.

CSU required a comprehensive storage solution that combined the needed performance, functionality, and manageability, as well as the ability to handle the demands of the universitys mission-critical applications, including PeopleSoft and Exchange. 

Today, CSU has standardized on NetApp storage. The deployment includes high-availability NetApp FAS3040 systems deployed in Baltimore, Maryland, at the schools primary data center in the Miles Conner Administration Building and across campus at the Grace Jacobs Building. Leveraging NetApp SnapMirror software, the university replicates data to a NetApp FAS2050 system installed on the campus of another University System of Maryland member, Salisbury University, situated 100 miles distant in eastern Maryland. This location serves as CSUs hot site for disaster recovery.

NetApp provides high-performance storage resources (via FCP) to some 80 physical servers and a broad array of applications, including Oracle PeopleSoft ERP, Microsoft SQL-based systems, Microsoft Exchange e-mail, and Blackboard teaching and learning software. The NetApp solution serves as storage for the universitys VMware environment that runs a variety of application, print, and web servers and includes approximately 100 virtual systems (90 production and 10 dev/test) running on six ESX hosts. 

Yes

Yes

By implementing innovative technology solutions, CSU provides faculty and students with 24x7 online services to meet education requirements. One of the main reasons that the Coppin State IT team wanted to overhaul its storage environment was to facilitate a significant expansion of the Universitys class capturing system. Class capturing makes class time available all the time by capturing, storing and indexing video and audio from lectures, and making them available for replay by every student. Class capturing technology is particularly important for Coppin States student population, who face financially challenging situations and have to squeeze in lecture times between jobs and family responsibilities. Without class capturing technology, and the storage infrastructure that makes it possible, a large proportion of the Universitys student population would not be able to afford the time to attend lectures. Extremely popular with both students and faculty, the use of class capturing technology had increased exponentially over the years to the point where the Universitys storage infrastructure was becoming a choking point. The IT team was unable to provide faculty with more storage needed to develop more appealing courseworkintegrating multimedia for example. With the new storage infrastructure, faculty have been able to greatly expand its use of class capturing technology and provide more interesting and effective lectures to all students. 
The implementation of new technology, including a new storage infrastructure and VDI, has also helped the University better serve its unique student population. The University IT department works hard to provide students with tools that they cant afford on their own. While most Universitys provide free access to expensive software to students in computer labs, Coppin State has taken this one step further. Because many students at Coppin States work and raise families while attending University, they dont have the extra time to spend working at University computer labs. As a result, the University has implemented a unique VDI solution that enables students to access software programs from their workplace or at home. By enabling rapid storage provisioning and delivering essential scalability and reliability, NetApp complements the VDI. The ability to quickly scale and allocate capacity is particularly important as the university expands IT services to support more video-on-demand applications and new nursing programs built on particularly technology-hungry software. Coppin has had no storage-related downtimenot even a minor incident. Students rely on its systems for critical services such as applying for and tracking financial aid, signing up for courses, and taking exams. 

E-mail serves as an official communication vehicle for Coppin. Student grades, class schedules, university news, and emergency alerts are all communicated via e-mail. To help graduates keep in touch and also find jobs, the University allows graduates to keep their e-mails years after they graduate. Limited capacity in the old storage infrastructure required enforcement of mailbox quotas. With heavy use of the e-mail system, clogged mailboxes presented on-going problems. Capacity issues were exacerbated by duplicate storage of e-mail attachments forwarded to thousands of students and staff.

Deduplication technology, in conjunction with NetApp SnapManager for Exchange software, has enabled Coppin to reclaim the capacity that would have been wasted on duplicate attachments stored by multiple people within the same e-mail database. Storage space efficiencies have enabled Coppin to give faculty members up to 1GB each for e-mail and home directories and students up to 1GB for e-mail. 

The new storage infrastructure also enables within-four-hour disaster recovery for critical applications. As a result, storage technology is key to helping the university meet requirements for emergency preparedness (communicating in the event of a disaster), disaster recovery, and business continuity.

The implementation of a new storage environment, VDI technology, and an improved class capturing system has had a tremendous impact on staff and students. In fact, when the new improved programs were introduced to faculty, the IT team received a standing ovation. 
The new IT solutions have had a big impact on individual students as well. A number of Coppin State students are also members of the military. It is not unusual for students to be deployed overseas while the middle of completing their degrees. The Coppin State team recalls one particular nursing student who was able to complete courseswith the help of class capturing technology and VDI, while deployed overseas. This would not have been possible without the Universitys new storage infrastructure and VDI technology. 
The following quotes provide an excellent summary of the benefits of the new infrastructure:
Technological transformation of teaching and learning at Coppin State University increased the demand for robust and efficient storage facility. Hardly a day passed without a faculty, staff at our campus stopping me, as the chair of Faculty Information Technology Committee (FITC), to ask me about the need for additional storage of information/data. More faculty needed more storage available to them. This did not happen by accident. This surge in demand for storage is the product of our own successes in the use of technology in teaching and learning.  At every meeting of the FITC, the prominent issue brought by members for a discussion was the issue of more robust storage.  The need for more storage was driven by demand placed on Information Technology Division (ITD) by the transformation of teaching and learning using technology at Coppin State University. No sooner did ITD came up with a great solution that met our needs, the campus showed a sign of relief. The campus is now happy.
Habtu Braha, Chair, Faculty Information Technology Committee and Dean, School of Management Science and Economics
With the exponential usage of Information technology on our campus by faculty, staff, and students, we needed to address the storage needs by an efficient, easy to manage and scalable solution. NetApp was our choice for a partner that proved to be an excellent choice.
Ahmed El-Haggan, VP of IT & CIO

The implementation of a new storage environment, VDI technology, and an improved class capturing system has had a tremendous impact on staff and students. In fact, when the new improved programs were introduced to faculty, the IT team received a standing ovation. 
The new IT solutions have had a big impact on individual students as well. A number of Coppin State students are also members of the military. It is not unusual for students to be deployed overseas while the middle of completing their degrees. The Coppin State team recalls one particular nursing student who was able to complete courseswith the help of class capturing technology and VDI, while deployed overseas. This would not have been possible without the Universitys new storage infrastructure and VDI technology. 
The following quotes provide an excellent summary of the benefits of the new infrastructure:
Technological transformation of teaching and learning at Coppin State University increased the demand for robust and efficient storage facility. Hardly a day passed without a faculty, staff at our campus stopping me, as the chair of Faculty Information Technology Committee (FITC), to ask me about the need for additional storage of information/data. More faculty needed more storage available to them. This did not happen by accident. This surge in demand for storage is the product of our own successes in the use of technology in teaching and learning.  At every meeting of the FITC, the prominent issue brought by members for a discussion was the issue of more robust storage.  The need for more storage was driven by demand placed on Information Technology Division (ITD) by the transformation of teaching and learning using technology at Coppin State University. No sooner did ITD came up with a great solution that met our needs, the campus showed a sign of relief. The campus is now happy.
Habtu Braha, Chair, Faculty Information Technology Committee and Dean, School of Management Science and Economics
With the exponential usage of Information technology on our campus by faculty, staff, and students, we needed to address the storage needs by an efficient, easy to manage and scalable solution. NetApp was our choice for a partner that proved to be an excellent choice.
Ahmed El-Haggan, VP of IT & CIO

Like many organizations these days, funds are limited. As a result, the IT team did face some challenges in getting funding for the project but once they were able to demonstate the impact that the new infrastructure would have on students, they were able to get the financial and IT resources needed to move ahead with the project quickly. 
Coppin States unique IT governance structurewhich includes IT staff, faculty, members of the senate advisory boardalso helped the organization come to a quick consensus in terms of funding. 

Because the IT solution provided a solution to an urgent need within Coppin State would proved to be such an asset to both students and faculty, the IT did not face any real opposition to its proposal. The Universitys unique IT governance structure also helped to ensure that approvals and funding were relatively easy to secure.

Exceeded

CSUs vision is to create an educational environment that fosters the highest-possible level of student academic excellence and creativity. To this end, CSU strives to leverage best-of-breed technology to make learning and program administration in liberal arts teaching more effective, and to contribute academic achievement models to the city, the state, and the nation. 
CSUs inner-city location provides it with the unique opportunity to provide local residents with access to a modern, post-secondary education that is enhanced by leading-edge technology. 
This new storage infrastructure gives CSU unprecedented flexibility to pursue projects like the VMware VDI pilot, a desktop virtualization solution for students within the universitys School of Management Science and economics. Having the VMware-on-NetApp environment in place gives CSU a proven infrastructure to deploy the VDI. NetApp also makes the project financially feasible by reducing the cost of VDI storage with deduplication and enabling fast, no-cost storage provisioning via NetApp FlexClone software. The university can provision thousands of desktops in a fraction of the time and space it would take with another storage solution. The VDI pilot is expected to help CSU provide greater opportunities to technical students, and to directly advance its contribution to increasing graduates in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math).

Student and faculty alike have embraced this project from day one. In fact, when the project was announced campus wide, the staff received a standing ovation.