In 2010 Curtin University became the first customer to trial the Optus Cloud beta service in support of its journey to adopt a utility model for the delivery of IT services.
The Optus Cloud beta solution provided Curtin with on demand access to a fully virtualised private data centre via the Optus Evolve IP network. Using the self-service online portal, Curtin was able to create and provision virtual machines to support a range of applications, with the deployment of new virtual machines taking a matter of hours rather than days.
“The objective of the Optus Cloud pilot was to progress our knowledge and thinking about how cloud computing can benefit Curtin IT and enhance the services we deliver to the University’s research, teaching and learning communities,” said Peter Nikoletatos, Curtin’s Chief Information Officer.
“With Optus Cloud, we’re able to offer a model for the self provisioning of storage and computing, which reduces IT deployment time and allows us to be more responsive to the needs of the wider Curtin community.”
“Companies like Optus are leading the way in cloud computing and we’ve built a relationship based on trust, openness and cooperation so we can lead change in ICT through innovation,” said Nikoletatos.
Curtin’s commitment to ICT innovation drives its vision to move IT from asset-focused to an information management model that caters for the increasingly digital nature of student, staff and researcher activity, using cloud computing as a key enabler.
“Our long-term ICT strategy is aligned with the cloud computing paradigm – to a pay-as-you-go computing model and deliver infrastructure, platform and software as a service as the technology and services mature. Our journey to cloud computing first began in 2009 with the virtualisation of our internal server environment and removing duplication across IT,” said Nikoletatos.
Since the conclusion of the trial, Curtin has worked closely with Optus Business and Alphawest to help define its cloud computing road-map, identifying research and virtualised learning as a key area for Cloud based services in the future. Curtin is currently exploring how it can support the University’s research activities by providing researchers with access to computing capacity via cloud computing services.
“Researchers like to have the flexibility to manage their IT requirements based on a switch on, switch off basis. We see real opportunity to provision bespoke environments for researchers so they can access computing on demand. This model could also be potentially extended to students as we progress along the Cloud journey,” said Nikoletatos.
For further information on Curtin’s involvement in the Optus trial, follow these links:
