The School of Information Studies (iSchool) has worked closely with Microsoft to bring cloud technology to the school, including establishing a modern learning lab. In 2019, the iSchool began a cloud migration that transformed its academic services and created new openings for in-demand Microsoft courses and credentialing.
The School of Information Studies built a state-of-the-art Microsoft Azure learning lab for students and faculty, creating a hands-on “sandbox” learning environment that offers practical experience and affordable access.
The school built a state-of-the-art Microsoft Azure learning lab for students and faculty, creating a hands-on “sandbox” learning environment that offers practical experience and affordable access. By moving to the cloud, the school modernized its systems, saved on hardware costs and further promoted its students’ success in a growing field.
Professors had asked for more access to Microsoft tools to use in classrooms, and Microsoft skills were in demand among people entering the workforce. So when Microsoft established a “smart hub” in the City of Syracuse in 2019, the school began to explore how to make the most of that opportunity.
The iSchool recognized the significance of the “smart hub” initiative and began exploring ways to prepare its students for the tech careers that the smart city might soon offer right in their own backyard.
“We had faculty knocking on our door saying, ‘Hey, they’re doing this with the City of Syracuse. What do we need to do to get that here?’” says Roger Merrill, director of technology services at the iSchool. “It was coming, and we wanted to get on board and actually get out ahead of it. The school reached out to Microsoft to develop a solution together.”
To meet the evolving needs of students and faculty, the iSchool saw an opportunity to innovate and lead the way.
“There was a conversation where we started to realize we were reaching a point of scale,” says Sarah Weber, director of corporate relations at the iSchool. “How can we be an innovative school that’s constantly using emerging technologies and new things while also delivering our courses in a sustainable and scalable way?”
Microsoft Azure offered the best fit for the school’s needs, Weber says. Its versatility meant that the iSchool could migrate its entire tech environment to the cloud and provide a wealth of opportunities for students, faculty and the community.
As part of the school’s collaboration with Microsoft, a hands-on, state-of-the-art Azure learning lab was created that allowed students to work with real-life scenarios instead of practice environments. Azure made it easy to put learning labs, courses and certifications into the hands of students and staff. For about the same cost as a print textbook, iSchool students can now access Azure Lab Services and Visual Studio Enterprise (VSE) development tools for an entire semester or academic year.
“The Azure credit benefits that students obtain via the VSE subscription open up access to the wide portfolio of cloud computing services offered by Azure,” says Carlos E. Caicedo Bastidas, associate professor at the iSchool. “Students can plan and create projects and become familiar with cost management and evaluation methods and tools.”
These experiences position Syracuse graduates well for work in cloud management, software development, cybersecurity and financial operations, where cloud skills are in high demand and hands-on experience can help to close skill gaps within the industry.
The iSchool faculty used resources from Microsoft Learn for Educators to build curricula in Azure. Faculty members were able to easily create demos, assignments and labs for students. They could also track and share student engagement and progress with capabilities in Microsoft Power BI. The iSchool faculty’s robust experience with the Azure environment is helping the school move toward becoming an Azure certification testing center.
With Azure, the iSchool was able to migrate its own systems to the cloud. Moving to a cloud platform meant that the school could update its offerings quickly and easily, and Azure provided the flexibility to design and scale its systems without the need to purchase new hardware.
The cloud migration opened valuable real estate on campus—a room once full of servers is now an office—and saved in expected hardware upgrades, freeing up resources for other programs and projects. The migration also had a positive impact on the school’s IT operations because Azure Lab Services is easier to configure and manage.
“It was important that Microsoft worked with both the business side and the IT side of our organization to really understand its needs and then implement the best solution,” says Weber.
The iSchool’s migration to Azure was a huge step forward in modernizing its technology and learning environments. In just under 60 days, it went from the testing stage to full rollout for students to use in class. “With Azure Lab Services, we had an opportunity to do something faster and better than our competitors—and in a cost-competitive way too,” says Andrew Joncas, director of core infrastructure services at the University. “Those three sides of the triangle don’t often line up. And when they do, you go for it.”
