Senior IS executive: Paul Jennings, IT coordinator Reports to: Infrastructure manager
Size of IS shop: 3
PCs: 622
Mobile PCs: 68
Terminals: 410
Hand-held devices: 1
Total screens: 1101
Industry: Education services
PC environment: Windows XP, HP
Server environment: Windows 2003, HP
DBMS: SQL
Address: 133 Tay Street, Invercargill
Website: www.sit.ac.nz
Key IS projects this year: Intrusion detection/firewall; server room
environment.
THE SOUTHERN INSTITUTE of Technology (SIT) offers more than 130
programmes including certificates, diplomas, degrees and post graduate
study, as well as SIT2LRN flexible learning, vocational preparation and
personal development courses. SIT has taken an innovative approach
to education, offering a Zero Fee Scheme.
SIT has around 5000 equivalent, full-time students all of whom have
access to the LAN, along with 350 full-time staff members.
Paul Jennings, IT coordinator, says SIT’s multi-media fl exible, mixedmode
delivery via a combination of educational TV (Sky, CUE), internet
access, Blackboard Learning Systems, CDROM/DVD and hard-copy
workbooks, is unique to New Zealand.
The set up is particularly suited for people who are unable to make it to a
campus for a variety of reasons including disability, geographic location or
work and family commitments. The learning environment includes up-to-date technology
and equipment, with 24-hour access to computer facilities.
An IT staff of three is supplemented by outsource partner Gen-i
Invercargill. IT functions that are outsourced include applications
development, systems and network management and help-desk.
The IT budget is divided between capital and operational
expenditure. SIT’s upgrade to a virtual server environment running
VMWare ESX Servers on an HP EVA 4000 SAN in 2006 and 2007,
has reduced the hardware costs normally associated with developing
new services.
Jennings says SIT can provision a new server or test
environment in less than four hours, without the requirement to have a
pre-approved budget for hardware.
Through server virtualisation, SIT had reduced the number of physical
servers required by more than 80 per cent in 2007 to support 30
virtual servers, running business-critical applications, on four physical
servers with load balancing abilities supported by VMotion.