The connected campus can have a number of benefits for colleges and universities, ranging from improved security to enhanced collaboration — and, of course, it can create a competitive edge in student and faculty recruitment. But to enable effective end-user solutions, institutions must first invest in the networking and data center infrastructure necessary to power them.

Colleges and universities looking to provide students and faculty with a robust connected-campus experience should explore the following infrastructure solutions and practices.

Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) is the fastest-growing category in data center infrastructure. The reasons for this are clear: This technology eliminates silos, simplifies management and enables scalability — three benefits that organizations need to support their digital transformation initiatives.

Data centers have changed quite a bit since pizza boxes reigned supreme. We replaced those servers with virtualization, reducing our physical footprint and utilizing more of the CPUs and memory. Next came the idea of fully tested systems in the form of converged infrastructure: making sure different components of compute, storage and networking worked well…

Often, I hear people talk about hyperconverged infrastructure as though it’s still an emerging, almost experimental solution. But the reality is that many organizations have deployed hyperconvergence — which combines storage, computing and networking into a single system — for years. As these organizations have learned, HCI can have a significant impact on their IT…

Many enterprises know and understand the role and the associated benefits an integrated managed services partner can bring to their IT functions — but what about mid-market organizations, those maybe not sure how to evaluate and measure the benefits of managed services partnerships? Many IT managers and leaders are struggling with this quandary today —…

Like their peers in other industries, state and local IT leaders are interested in modernization, but budget constraints often stand in the way. In my experience working with government agencies, many organizations wait five years or even longer to upgrade their data center infrastructures.

Here are four ways that states, cities and counties can streamline data center management through modernization.