Customer Solution Case Study
/ Jordan University Chooses Cloud Email Platform for 35,000-Plus Students
“We will realize significant savings because all emails are hosted at the Microsoft data center with no need for local servers.”
Dr Awni Itradat, Director of ICT, Hashemite University
The Hashemite University in Jordan wanted a cloud-based system to provide a student email collaboration platform for more than 40,900 users. The project involved Microsoft Live@edu, which was migrated to Microsoft Office 365 Education—including Exchange Online and SharePoint Online, and with plans to use Lync Online. Students now have a single sign-on, while the university has avoided spending resources on physical servers and storage.
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.Document published July 2013
Business Needs
The Hashemite University in Jordan is one of the largest public universities in the kingdom, with 35,000 students and 1,700 academic and administrative staff. Previously, the entire student online experience was run using a 12-year-old Oracle interface, which was no longer fit for purpose or suitable for students entering the modern workplace. There was no standardized university-provided email and collaboration platform, and communication among faculty staff needed to be improved.
Dr Awni Itradat, Director of ICT, Hashemite University, says: “We wanted to simplify the user experience for students and ultimately give them the tools with which to compete in today’s job market. We were seeking to provide a new and convenient web-based platform for communication and collaboration.”
The university decided to look for a cloud-based solution that would scale easily and integrate with the existing Student Information System based on Oracle to help increase provisioning. The university wanted to ensure that students could use a single sign-on to retrieve all of their work. “We could see that if we had a central way of connecting with all students, communication between faculty and students would improve,” says Dr Itradat.
The university IT team also wanted an easy-to-manage infrastructure. Dr Itradat says: “With a hosted cloud-based email system, we would aim to make significant savings because no physical servers or storage would be necessary on campus. This would also reduce management effort and time, while freeing our IT technicians for higher value tasks.”
Dr Itradat and his team turned for advice on procurement to the nonprofit organization Jordanian Universities Network (JUNET). It is the central body in charge of licensing and coordination among the 11 public universities in Jordan and IT vendors, including Microsoft.
Solution
After lengthy negotiations and demonstrations of different solutions, Hashemite University opted for Microsoft Live@edu, later to be migrated to Microsoft Office 365 Education, including Exchange Online and SharePoint Online.
Dr Itradat says: “Deployment and migration are now complete. The system is live and ready for the summer semester, with more than 50 percent of target students addressed. The university now plans to introduce Lync Online unified communications, part of Office 365 Education, for its students in a later phase of the rollout.”
Dr Farouk Al-Omari, Director General, Jordanian Universities Network (JUNET), says: “Our team collaborated with Microsoft Jordan to find the best solution for the Hashemite University in a single package for cost-effective licensing. Users can access Office 365 Education from any device with an Internet connection, which means they can now work from anywhere, including off campus and in remote locations.”
Asked why the university preferred Office 365 Education to open source software alternatives, Dr Itradat says: “Microsoft technology is widespread, easy to manage, and user friendly. There’s access to training and expert support resources and that assists with easy implementation. Scalability was an important factor in our choice of Office 365 Education.”
Faculty staff remain on the previous system, but Dr Itradat says: “Faculty members who are Oracle users are sending tasks and jobs to students through Office 365 Education. On registration, students receive full credentials through Office 365 Education, after which they can access all of their work through a single sign-on. It also includes connectivity to the back-office Oracle system, providing simple integration.”
Benefits
By deploying Office 365 Education, the Hashemite University is the first of Jordan’s 11 public universities to adopt a cloud-based email platform for its 35,000 students. Students can now work from anywhere, with a single sign-on to access their learning tasks and manage registration. The university has avoided spending resources on a physical infrastructure, including storage.
- Every student gains access to campus IT systems with single sign-on. In an innovative project for higher education in Jordan, Microsoft 365 Education is giving more than 35,000 students access to the Student Information System from anywhere. Dr Itradat says: “Each student has a personal email account on the university domain, which uses Microsoft SharePoint technology.”
- University avoids significant costs for infrastructure and storage. Dr Itradat adds: “We will realize significant savings because all emails are hosted at the Microsoft data center with no need for local servers. Every 2,000 concurrent users would have required a dedicated server cluster setup and around 15 terabytes of disk space.”
- Microsoft licensing offer gives students free software. Dr Al-Omari says: “The licensing model—the Microsoft School Agreement licensing program—agreed with Microsoft by JUNET makes it possible for Hashemite University to give all students free software.”
- University benefits from partner expertise. Dr Itradat says: “The support we received from JUNET has saved my IT team time. This is time they can now spend experimenting and learning—it’s helped them to stay focused on strategy and planning.”
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published July 2013