Central Queensland University was the only university in the world and the only Asia-Pacific organisation handpicked for a Hewlett Packard (HP) new storage technology test.

One of only nine organizations world-wide, CQU was chosen to take part in the HP Beta Test program due to the University’s willingness to the “push the boundaries” of IT technology.

HP recently sent a film crew to Rockhampton to interview CQU’s Vice-Chancellor Professor John Rickard and IT management about the success of the beta testing of the new HP storage technology.

CQU’s Manager Corporate Systems Administration Adrian Yarrow said the new HP Eva 8000 (the system being beta tested) was a welcome addition to the University’s IT infrastructure.

“The new system builds on our existing technical architecture and we look forward to being able to take advantage of the additional performance and capacity now available,” Mr Yarrow said.

“What really impressed us was EVA 8000’s virtualisation capabilities – we’d seen nothing like it before.

“The system will significantly enhance CQU’s business continuity capability.”.

The HP EVA is located in CQU’s newly-constructed second data centre.

CQU and HP have a long-stranding relationship dating back to 1977, however the partnership with HP became more strategic in 1999 when the University established plans to refresh all of its administrative informative systems with Peoplesoft.

The University’s Information Technology Division (ITD) recognized the need to move towards a single manageable system, rather than a number of smaller ‘silos’ consisting of individual pieces of technology. A scan of the market place indicated HP (Compaq at the time) was the only vendor that could provide a complete solution that would support all of ITD’s technology requirements.

Adopting SAN (Storage Area Network) technology was fundamental to CQU, changing how it delivered its IT services. Prior to adopting SAN technology, ITD frequently found itself dealing with shortages of disk space on individual servers.

Since 2002, CQU has chosen HP EVA to be the foundation layer of its IT infrastructure. The EVA gives the university: flexibility, reduced operational costs, and an ability to design and build more robust IT services.

Photo above: Manager Corporate Systems Administration Adrian Yarrow speaks with HP's film crew about the beta testing taking place at CQU.

Photo left: Vice-Chancellor John Rickard tells HP's film crew about CQU's operations.