Colleges Simplify and Streamline IT with Hyperconverged Data Centers

It was 2015, and Western Washington University had a data center full of aging technology: HPE1U servers, storage area network (SAN) systems, storage arrays, Fibre Channel connections and the like. Half these systems were at end of life; the other half would be obsolete in a year. So WWU’s technology department had a decision to make. Keep going down the same path, or forge a new direction?

Ultimately, the decision came down to simple economics, says Jon Junell, assistant director of enterprise infrastructure services for the campus, located 20 miles south of the U.S.-Canada border. 

“If I just replaced everything, I was going to be able to solve half the problem for all of the money,” he says. “That’s not a very sustainable position.”