An innovative migration to Microsoft Azure Public Cloud enhances WSU’s digital experience.
Logicalis Australia has assisted Western Sydney University (WSU) in enhancing their digital experience with an innovative migration to Microsoft Azure.
WSU is one of Australia’s leading universities with a comprehensive range of study areas in undergraduate, postgraduate and Higher Degree Research programs, and has more than 47,000 students and 6,000 staff across 13 campus locations in Sydney.
As part of its strategic plan, the university sought to overcome complex IT challenges and deliver a digital experience to support world-class research, foster university engagement and drive innovation.
Facing the approaching end-of-life of its existing data centre and the need to migrate critical production workloads, WSU recognised the potential of Microsoft Azure Public Cloud. This move promised faster deployment, agile development, flexible spending and enhanced security and scalability.
To achieve these goals, the university issued a tender to find a partner with the expertise to guide this critical transformation.
Logicalis Australia was selected for its agnostic approach and deep partnership with Microsoft. Leveraging their robust relationship, Logicalis Australia conducted a comprehensive analysis of potential solutions, ensuring that the university’s needs were met with precision and foresight.
In alignment with WSU’s future cloud strategy, Logicalis designed an enterprise-scale Azure Landing Zone based on Microsoft’s Cloud Adoption Framework. This scalable, modular architecture provided a robust foundation for hosting workloads in the cloud, ensuring that the university’s digital environment could evolve with future developments in Azure.
The project’s success was driven by close collaboration with key stakeholders at WSU, from C-suite executives to IT departments. Logicalis developed a shared services model, enabling the university’s IT team to scale operations effectively while maintaining robust governance.
The newly built platform now supports a range of student services and delivers several key benefits:
- Agile development and deployment: Streamlined processes that accelerate application deployment and reduce operational efforts.
- Cost reduction: Significant annual savings in IT operational and MSP costs.
- Enhanced security & resiliency: Advanced security measures that mitigate cyber threats and ensure operational stability.
- Continuous improvement: Access to ongoing innovations, maintaining the agility of the new solution.
This groundbreaking solution for WSU has not only transformed the university’s digital landscape but also earned Logicalis Australia the title of Microsoft’s 2024 Azure Partner of the Year for Australia and New Zealand.
The scalable and replicable engagement model developed through this partnership is set to benefit sectors beyond higher education – demonstrating the far-reaching impact of this innovative approach.
Karina Foley, IT Leader, WSU, said: “This was the best IT project that I have ever worked on. One of the reasons for this was the way (Logicalis) adapted to meet our team where they were at, adopting some of our practices and processes to run the project in a way that was comfortable for everyone.”
