NRI Provides Flexible Service Under Inflexible Circumstances
 Although education has not experienced a “dark age,” the Information Age has certainly ushered in a new renaissance. The information superhighway and peripheral technology has enabled students and educators alike to explore learning in ways never before imagined.
Born six years ago in the bust of the Information Age was the Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium (CTDLC), a leading institution that delivers e-learning, web application development, student services, learning assessment, and user support to tens of thousands of students per year. CTDLC offers course platforms, faculty development, technical support, help desk support, and a multitude of educational services to a range of K-20 institutions and to both nonprofit and for-profit businesses.
CTDLC CIO George Claffey Jr. is pleased with the advancement in education that technology has provided. But he’s not satisfied. “We hope the Consortium can serve as a place for all of our member institutions to work together on e-learning initiatives,” said Claffey. From co-location initiatives to purchasing decisions, there’s power working together as one consortium. Separately, we represent small to medium schools of 5,000-10,000 students. Combined, we represent over 80,000 students. That’s an impressive number when you talk about e-learning. Our vision is to bring together that 80,000 student number and leverage it to its fullest potential.
"Online learning is growing rapidly,” Claffey added. “The needs of students, faculty, and administrative personnel are constantly changing and evolving. It is our job to support our clients and to provide a pathway for them to enhance their own services by leveraging our infrastructure and resources.”
CTDLC is also growing rapidly. Over the past three years, the CTDLC had evolved from a two-server IT shop to twenty-eight servers, quickly outgrowing a co-located environment and two small server rooms.
“We consider NRI as a trusted partner,” said Claffey. “They took the time to understand our business, how we operate, and our future goals. I am comforted knowing we can rely on NRI for today’s needs as well as those years ahead.”
The growth was welcome, but it came with growing pains. Both locations suffered from tight quarters which resulted in chronic heating, electrical, power, and capacity problems. Power management was spread across multiple machines which caused increased IT administration. The need to build a data center became evident.
Claffey identified a location in the basement of his offices that would serve as a data center in which he could consolidate both locations. The location would also suit CTDLC’s current needs as well as allow for expansion that would support Claffey’s vision of future growth.
By the time Claffey received approval, he had less than sixty days to complete the task before the current year’s budget would lapse. The following year’s budget was tighter and would not support both the move and operations for the new fiscal year.
NRI was brought in to provide a quick solution. Typically a job of this magnitude is developed over a longer period of time. It was an overwhelming project as numerous items including heating, electrical, and other construction had to be considered.
Although the new location offered more room, space consolidation was still a concern. CTDLC needed to find a solution that would optimize square footage while allowing ample service access to its equipment. As part of optimizing square footage, CTDLC needed to consolidate its many SMART-UPS 1400 and 3000 devices.
NRI provided CTDLC with the InfraStruXure ™ solution, a modular scalable rack, power, and environmental system. InfraStruXure not only satisfied the immediate issues such as power, square footage, and easy access, it offered CTDLC flexibility to increase capacity to accommodate growth. Along with its SMART-UPS devices, InfraStruXure protects CTDLC’s Dell Servers and Cisco gear, e-learning applications, and administrative applications.
“NRI understood our time constraints and in spite of the many variables and challenges, turned the job around,” said Claffey.
During that same time frame, NRI also provided CTDLC technicians the ability to remotely manage the new data center over the Internet. By employing KVM over IP technology, CTDLC has optimized square footage even more as less technicians are needed inside the data center.
“Due to the complex nature of e-learning software, technicians need frequent access to the data center” said Claffey. “We are a 24/7/365 operation. KVM over IP allows our technicians 100% from anywhere in the world at anytime.”
“We consider NRI as a trusted partner,” said Claffey. “They took the time to understand our business, how we operate, and our future goals. I am comforted knowing we can rely on NRI for today’s needs as well as those years ahead.”
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