Fujitsu Siemens wins £2m server gig at Manchester Uni

Mad for it

Fujitsu Siemens has won a £2 million contract to supply the University of Manchester with servers as part of an ambitious server consolidation project ahead of a major expansion to the uni's student population next year.

The PRIMEPOWER SPARC-based UNIX servers and Intel-based PRIMERGY servers will provide networked e-mail, personal file storage and back-up to service the needs of the northern University's 33,000 staff and students.

Fujitsu Siemens says the project will allow the University to reduce number of e-mail servers from 60 to six, with an estimated cost savings of more than 50 per cent along with improved reliability and round the clock availability.

Which is nice.

The overall system comprises a server cluster running the Oracle Collaboration Suite email package, a Storage Area Network fabric and storage array from EMC Corporation, and a tape library system from StorageTEK. The server cluster will includes three PRIMEPOWER PW-650 servers, two PRIMERGY T850 eight-way systems and two PRIMERGY R450 servers. Fujitsu Siemens Computers has also supplied 18 Intel-based PRIMERGY servers to enhance the University's existing NetWare-based networking systems.

Manchester University is merging with UMIST (the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology) in the autumn next year. Staff and students at UMIST will be migrated to the new system during the merger process, which will swell user numbers to by 10,000 to 43,000. ®

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