Page 12 - OIT Progress Report: 2023 Edition

Supporting New Construction Projects
OIT plays a crucial role in every construction project at SMU. From the Meadows School of the Arts renovation to the construction of Frances Anne Moody Hall and ongoing partnerships with Weber end zone and Cox renovations, significant time and effort have been dedicated to planning and installing networking and AV solutions.
We continue to be actively involved in ensuring smooth network integration during these projects to meet the growing demands of our campus community. Our teams are involved in nearly all phases of the construction projects beginning with feasibility, design, implementation and ongoing support.
Virtualization Cluster Enhances Campus Infrastructure
Critical data center upgrades were completed to maintain equipment within the server rooms. The deployment of our new VMWare VXRail cluster has significantly enhanced our virtual server infrastructure. Over 468 virtual servers were successfully migrated from our legacy cluster
in the University Data Center to the new Dell VXRail HCI (Hyper Converged Infrastructure) with VMWare’s vSAN, offering local shared storage. This transition has led to noticeable improvements in resource performance, reducing the number of host servers by half and resulting in cost and energy savings. The implementation of this cluster streamlines the efficient deployment and administration of virtual servers, marking a significant milestone in our efforts to modernize SMU’s virtual server infrastructure and
opening doors for further developments on our VMWare roadmap.
10 OIT PROGRESS REPORT 2023