The Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University (SSRU) was established in 1937 and elevated to the status of a leading university in Thailand by 2004. This higher educational institution focuses on providing education, conducting research, and preserving arts and culture.
SSRU responds to the needs of national development with a dedicated vision to be a model university for society at large. At present, Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University consists of 6 campuses with more than 20,000 students. It has also been ranked as the No. 1 Rajabhat University in the country for 13 consecutive years.
Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University's Challenges
At the Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University, the IT infrastructure is crucial for teaching and learning. The online teaching record system, exam scheduling, grading systems, and more, all need the system to work efficiently.
The university noted that the older, more traditional infrastructure for the E-Learning system would not respond adequately for students and that a more advanced system was necessary to provide a smooth and effective learning platform.
Stable access was an important element for the new infrastructure to maintain. This would help in developing and providing a consistent teaching and learning curriculum for all the subjects taught at the institution.
The old system also struggled under the demand for resources and responding to multiple connections being made at the same time. The electronic exam system, academic performance monitoring, and academic work at SSRU required a large number of resources to be used and readily available for students and university staff throughout the semester. The new infrastructure had to be able to withstand those demands.
Additionally, the institute’s Central Information System which manages all of the university's infrastructure - including networking, websites, ERP, enrollment systems, and more - was found to be slow. This made it time-consuming to load pages for students and faculty using the e-learning or enrollment systems during rush hour.
The new infrastructure had to maintain SSRU's system as required and issue reports to the management. Another challenge for the organization was based on its cybersecurity posture. The university was concerned about personal information being breached or leaked and the risk of threats from unauthorized external access.
Sangfor’s Solution for SSRU
Sangfor’s Hyper-Converged Infrastructure solution has drastically improved the teaching and learning systems of the Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University - allowing them to be more efficient and effective.
The Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) is a state-of-the-art platform from Sangfor that was used to replace the old server at the university - which had difficulties in responding to numerous connections for multiple users simultaneously.
The platform also features a vAF (Virtual Application Firewall) to elevate the cybersecurity of the new Hyper-Converged Infrastructure. Web Applications, Database Oracle, and the MySQL platform all worked up to 3 times faster with the use of the Sangfor Hyper-Converged Infrastructure - increasing efficiency for both students and staff alike.
The new infrastructure also integrates with security systems such as Sangfor’s Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) to help protect applications from cyber-attacks - like DDoS attacks. This allows SSRU to be confident that its services are safe and reliable.
End-User Experience
SSRU saw the improved performance with the Hyper-Converged Infrastructure for both the education team and the central information systems teams. This allowed them to help each other enhance and manage digital programs and teaching systems more efficiently.
With smoother access to registration and e-learning platforms, students who access Moodle no longer experienced any disconnections. Additionally, opening new pages and retrieving data was now a lot less time-consuming as accessing Oracle and MySQL databases became 3 times faster than before.
Combined with the Next-Generation Firewall, Sangfor’s Hyper-Converged Infrastructure provided effective protection from cyber-attacks which gave the university the confidence to provide efficient, authentic, and secure educational services to the public.