LOCAL AND STATEWIDE CONSIDERATIONS
A popular public university in the South, serving a large, diverse student body across undergraduate and graduate programs, recently reevaluated its long-term computing strategy. As part of a statewide higher education system, the location plays a key role within a broader network of universities that supports regional innovation, making it even more important that technology decisions align with both campus priorities and external stakeholder expectations.
BALANCING A CLOUD-FIRST STRATEGY WITH ON-PREMISE DATA CENTER DEMANDS
Within this context, the IT leadership independently advanced a cloud-first approach to support an expanding mix of academic and operational applications. While this shift promised improved scalability and reduced reliance on legacy infrastructure, it also raised a critical question: how would it affect growing research-driven, high-performance AI workloads that continued to rely on on-premise resources?
Answering this question requires a closer examination of the university’s data center environment, including how power, cooling, and space would need to evolve to support a hybrid computing future.
That’s why LEDG was chosen to conduct a thorough, independent assessment of campus data centers and determine what could be consolidated (or even retired) to optimize performance in the years ahead.
RIGHT-SIZING CAMPUS INFRASTRUCTURE FOR LONG-TERM NEEDS
Working jointly with the university’s IT, network, and facilities teams, LEDG examined on-campus computing environments, including two existing data centers and a separate data room that could serve as a potential consolidation option. In addition to assessing the conditions of each space, the LEDG team looked at the interdependence between the data centers, building systems, and campus-wide fiber backbone. LEDG experts also leveraged available monitoring data and operational insights to validate how systems were performing together in practice.
Following a detailed analysis, LEDG presented leadership a full report with “good, better, and best” options for all three spaces as well as its campus distribution facilities—each of which considered costs, risk, and flexibility. This tiered approach enabled the university to compare immediate needs against longer-term modernization goals so it could align infrastructure decisions with staffing realities, budget constraints, and system-wide opportunities such as disaster recovery and shared services. As a result, the university has a clear, documented assessment of its facilities, allowing it to:
As the university continues to execute its long-term, hybrid computing strategy, decision makers now have peace of mind knowing the underlying infrastructure can adapt over time without significant additional investment.
“By taking a deliberate, collaborative approach to infrastructure planning, the university ensured that its cloud-first strategy would enhance the performance and resilience of its on-premise data center environments.”
Bambi Rivera, Practice Leader
Technology Services Leading Edge Design Group