Paris Lodron Universität Delivers Extreme Performance for Campus Applications and Offers Cloud Services to Other Austrian Universities
 
 

Paris Lodron Universität Delivers Extreme Performance for Campus Applications and Offers Cloud Services to Other Austrian Universities

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Paris Lodron Universität is the largest educational institution in the Salzburg region and one of Austria’s major universities. Presently, more than 18,000 students are enrolled in classes and the university employs approximately 2,700 staff members in research, teaching, and administrative positions. Since its re-establishment in 1962, Paris Lodron Universität has developed into a modern, vibrant institution whose four departments—Theology, Law, Cultural and Social Sciences, and Natural Sciences—meet the highest teaching and research standards. To support matriculation and course registration for its large student body, Paris Lodron Universität operates and maintains Campus Online, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system consisting of heterogeneous databases, front-end and back-end applications, and storage applications covering all departments.

 
 

 
 

Challenges

A word from Paris Lodron Universität

  • “The deployment of Oracle Exadata Database Machine immediately resolved a number of major headaches, from improving poor system performance during matriculation periods, to reducing the manual efforts required to maintain and update our heterogeneous applications. Further, Oracle Exadata has so much computing power that we gained the ability to offer partitions to other Austrian universities that can operate the campus application in the cloud.” – Florin Guma, Chief Information Officer, Paris Lodron Universität

  • Ensure seamless operation for the ERP system, called Campus Online, to help reduce time spent analyzing students’ error messages and increase overall system performance
  • Ensure easy system component updates from firmware to front-end applications without the need to exhaustively test system compatibility—as had formerly been the case with each database update, for example
  • Manage peak loads during student matriculation in the spring and fall, when thousands of students register for four to five courses each, to eliminate system failures and enable students to efficiently book mandatory courses

Solutions

Oracle Product and Services

  • Deployed Oracle Exadata Database Machine to deliver extreme performance for Campus Online with preconfigured, pretuned, and pretested database servers, storage servers, and network connections and eliminate substantial time and effort spent maintaining heterogeneous applications and systems
  • Outsourced the entire project, from proof of concept, to data migration and Oracle Exadata operation and support, to specialized Oracle partners, enabling the university to operate Oracle Exadata with a junior database administrator (DBA) who works only part time and who replaced a full-time senior DBA—substantially reducing labor costs
  • Migrated all existing databases—300 gigabytes—to Oracle Exadata within two hours with the help of Oracle GoldenGate to meet the important deadline for an upcoming matriculation period
  • Managed the fall 2012 matriculation cycle without any unplanned system downtime—a key issue for the university, which needs to guarantee students can book courses and pursue the curriculum
  • Enabled Paris Lodron Universität to provide system power outside the matriculation periods to other Austrian universities, which will be able use Oracle Exadata Database Machine partitions and operate the Campus Online application in the cloud to gain in system performance and reduce IT costs
  • Established a concrete schedule to offer Exadata partitions and computing power to all 15 universities in Austria, giving students high-performance access to the cloud-based, Campus Online application

Why Oracle

“Our core university applications required the best database infrastructure available on the market. Oracle was our first choice because no other manufacturer compares with Oracle in terms of database performance, security, manageability, backup, and recovery. And with Oracle’s special licensing program for educational institutions, we are able to purchase world-class technology with a limited public budget,” said Florin Guma, chief information officer, Paris Lodron Universität.

Partner

Paris Lodron Universität outsourced the entire project—including proof of concept, migration, and Oracle Exadata operation and support—to specialized Oracle partners.

“With a single point of contact—backed by Oracle Database specialists—we benefited from the skills of a team of highly experienced service providers to manage and support the entire solution, without needing to bring on a complete, internal team,” Guma said. “In fact, we operate Oracle Exadata and offer Exadata-based cloud services with only one junior DBA, in-house.”  

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