IBM Mainframe Supports University of Toronto’s Expanding Student Body

IBM Mainframe Supports University of Toronto’s Expanding Student Body

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that the University of Toronto has installed a new System z9 Business Class (z9 BC) mainframe to achieve the scale, security and reliability required to keep pace with the growing demands of the academic community. Marrying the power of virtual servers with the simplicity of a single physical system, the new z9 BC will effectively manage the information and records of an academic community.

It will also take advantage of the Capacity on Demand (CoD) function to manage spikes in utilization during course registration, finals and posting of grades when thousands of students access the system at once. Through CoD, the university can increase capacity dramatically, allowing students to register with no glitches or delays.

The z9 BC will also be valued for its security capabilities during annual student elections. Students are able to log in to the system front end securely and promptly and vote only once.”We felt an immediate change when we got the System z BC up to its full capacity with the on demand function,” said Eugene Siciunas, director of Computing & Networking Services, University of Toronto. “We’ve seen a night versus day difference in the quality of the student experience here with enhancements like expedited course registration — key to our success since students are our business.”

Founded in 1827, the University of Toronto is Canada’s largest and most distinguished university. It has been using the mainframe platform for its student system for the past 30 years and has a student population of over 65,000.

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